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PREFACE. 



With this number we condude our Twenty-first Volume, and have 

 to apologise for not having yet been able to carry out our intention of 

 publishing a " coming-of-age " number. It is not for want of the 

 will, but rather that leisure has not been found in which to arrange 

 the details. 



The success of the magazine and its position in the entomological 

 world are now so assured that there is no need to point out the varied 

 interests that are catered for. We have been able, thanks to various 

 donors, to present our readers with another extensive series of illustra- 

 tions, and have no doubt that these have been fully appreciated by our 

 subscribers. We have been fortunate in obtaining a rather larger 

 share of papers relating to British entomology, and would urge our 

 readers to continue to help us in this direction. Articles on field 

 work are still, no doubt, most keenly appreciated, and add largely to 

 our knowledge of "distribution," whilst the notes relating to conti- 

 nental trips in pursuit of our favourite quarry, add largely to our 

 knowledge of the "general" and "local" variation of many species 

 well known to us at home. 



The General Index has been again compiled by the Eev. C. R. N. 

 Burrows, whilst Professor T. Hudson Beare, Dr. Malcolm Burr, 

 Messrs. J. E. Collm and H. J. Turner have the special index well in 

 hand. To all of these we offer our most grateful thanks, and, as Mr. 

 H. J. Turner, in particular, really relieves us of a great responsibility 

 in this as well as in other directions, we have obtained his consent to 

 allow his name to appear on the cover of the magazine as one of those 

 to whom we may turn for advice and help when at all necessary. The 

 contents of our magazine will show that our editorial stafi' is really a 

 working one, to which we owe, and heartily tender, our warmest 

 thanks. 



But it is the help of the outsider that really tells ; the great mass 

 of short notes, relating to observations in the field, the results of 

 breeding experiments, the record of the rise and fall in the abundance 

 of species in different seasons, the appearance and disappearance of 

 aberrational forms, the extension of species locally under apparently 

 exceptionally suitable conditions, lists of captures from outlying dis- 

 tricts, with notes on dates of capture, etc., all add to the general 

 interest of a magazine the contents of which must be to some extent 

 descriptive and biological in their general character. To all those 

 who send us such notes, who introduce our magazine to the notice of 

 their entomological friends, and indeed to all who help us in any way, 

 our best thanks are a:ratefullv tendered. 



