THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OK T-ONDON. 309 



The new rules proposed by the Council of the Ent. Soc. of London 

 are to be preferred to the old on the ground of distinctness and clear- 

 ness in place of ambiguity. The addition of two members to the 

 Council may be a boon to those who hnd the present number inade- 

 quate to gratify their ambition to serve the Society, but the present 

 Council is amply large enough for business purposes. The raison 

 iCetre of the alteration is to improve the mode of election to the 

 Council with a view to avoid in future any of the ill-feeling which 

 certainly was raised over last year's election. It seems very objection- 

 able that no way of attaining this has been devised without resort to a 

 ballot every year; this is much to be deprecated. The Council are to 

 be congratulated on the astuteness with which they appear to oflfer 

 the " rebels " large democratic concessions, whilst making the election 

 of anyone not on the Council's list practically impossible. Impossible, 

 certainly, without an amount of general feeling on the point that 

 would justify a vote of censure on the Council. A gi'eat amount of 

 discontent, almost indignation, would be retpiired, without which the 

 necessary canvassing and organisation (without any assistance from 

 the officers of the Society) would not be undertaken, and, if undertaken, 

 would be fruitless. The ett'ect of the amended rules is that, at the ballot, 

 any member may replace any name suggested by the Council by any other 

 he pleases, and nine-tenths of the members voting might do thii-', but the 

 Council's list would be elected all the same. Suppose a majority, say, 

 four-tenths of the voters, desired to expunge one name from the 

 Council's list, they would fail unless they all agreed on the name to be 

 substituted for it, and, equally, the desire of a majority to add a fresh 

 name would be futile unless all agreed to strike out the same name to 

 make room for it. It is absolutely necessary if the democratic character 

 claimed for these new rules is to have a shadow of reality that some 

 means be afforded by which all names that are to be ballotted for, 

 whether on the list of the Council or those proposed by individual 

 members, shall be on the papers distributed for the ballot. The 

 prohibition of plumping is merely a device for rendering more certain 

 tliat the distributed votes and erasures of an unorganised opposition 

 shall be futile. 



Proposed alteration of Bye=laws for the election of the Council of 

 the Entomological Society of London. 



It is now nearly twelve months since the Council of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of London was warned that the society itself was no 

 longer in leading-strings, and that personal likes and dislikes had to be 

 put aside in the selection of those who should govern it, that those 

 who were selected must be men who were entomologists first and other 

 things afterwards, and above all things that they should be elected by 

 the body of Fellows in reality and not merely theoretically. It was 

 allowed to be desirable that a more democratic mode of election should 

 take place, and that the Fellows should take an active part in the 

 election, even by those Fellows who were unwilling to take part in a 

 movement that might by the weak-kneed be construed into something 

 approaching a vote of censure on the Council. After delaying the 

 greater part of a year, and with the minimum time left at disposal to 

 satisfy the Byelaws for their consideration and discussion, a series 

 of alterations in them has been brought forward by the Council, 

 which, to put it mildly, are the most transparently simple suggestions 

 ever made for turning the Council into a closed body, and to prevent 



