38 THE entomologist's record. 



Barrett, F.E.S., Mr. Herbert Druce, F.L.S., Captain Henry J. Elwes, 

 F.L.S., Prof. Raphael Meldola, F.R.S., Mr. Edward B. Poulton, M.A., 

 F.R.S., Dr. David Sharp, M.A., F.R.S., Colonel Charles Swinhoe, F.L.S., 

 and the Right Hon. Lord Walsingham, LL.D., F.R.S. It was also an- 

 nounced that the President would appoint Captain Elwes, Dr. Sharp, 

 and Lord Walsingham, Vice-Presidents for the Session 1892-3. The 

 President then delivered an address. After alluding to the vast number 

 of species of insects and to the recent calculations of Dr. Sharp and 

 Lord Walsingham, as to the probable number of them as yet unde- 

 scribed, he referred to the difficulty experienced in preparing a mono- 

 graph of the fauna of even a comparatively small part of the world, 

 e.g., Mexico and Central America, and certain small islands in the West 

 Indian Archipelago, upon which he, with a large number of competent 

 assistants, had been engaged for many years. The examination of the 

 collections recently made in St. Vincent, alone, had obliged him to 

 search the whole of Europe and North America for specialists ; and 

 similar collections from Grenada were still untouched in consequence 

 of the number of workers being unequal to the demands upon their 

 time. He observed that the extent of the subject of Entomology was 

 so vast that nothing but a systematic and continuous effort to amass 

 collections, work them out, and preserve thera, could place us in a 

 position to proceed safely with the larger questions which followed the 

 initial step of naming species ; and it would only be by the steady effort 

 of our Museum officials, not only to work at the subject themselves, 

 but to enlist the aid of every available outside worker, that substantial 

 progress could be made. The President concluded by referring to the 

 losses by death during the year of several Fellows of the Society and 

 other Entomologists, special mention being made of Mons. Edmond 

 Andre, the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. F. Grut, Mr. E. W. Janson, Prof. 

 Felipe Poey, Sir William Macleay, Mr. H. Edwards, Mr. Robert Gillo 

 and Dr. J. M. J. Af Tengstrom. — H. Goss, Hon. Sec. 



Birmingham Entomological Society. — -Jajtuary iith, 1892. — 

 Mr. R. C Bradley exhibited some Diptera which had been shown at 

 a former meeting as Pteropoccilia lamed, with the note that they had 

 been confirmed as that species by Mr. Verrall. They had since, at his 

 request, been again submitted to Mr. Verrall, and he names them as 

 Toxoneura muli'ebris, and remarks that P. lamed is not as yet recorded 

 satisfactorily as British. A letter was read from Mr. C. J. Fryer record- 

 ing Sfe/iamma westivoodi, from Warwick. Mr. C. J. Wainwright read a 

 paper on " A Holiday spent in North Cornwall last year," in which he 

 described the results of a good night's collecting on the north coast, 

 during which he took Pliisia orichalcea, and many good Diptera. The 

 paper was illustrated by photographs and the collections made. — Col- 

 bran J. Wainwright, Hon. Sec. 



City of London Entomological and Natural History 

 Society. — Thursday, January ']i/i, 1892. — Exhibits: — -Mr. Hill, Amphi- 

 dasys betnlaria var. doubledayaria, and a specimen with the dark mark- 

 ings transformed into buff — slightly darker than the ground colour. 

 Mr. Jager, Vanessa antiopa from Germany, including a specimen 

 entirely without the blue spots, and another without the blue spots 

 nearest to the tip of the wing. Mr. Prout, a long series of Cidaria 

 truncata (russala), autumn brood, taken on sugar in the Isle of Wight, 



