212 C Ktbruarj-, 



This laborious undertaking (which wc have previously had occasion to notice 

 during the course of its publication in parts) is now completed, and forms a volume 

 of 845 pages, with 48 plates (mostly coloured), and very numerous wood-cuts. 

 About sixteen years have elapsed since the publication of the second edition, and 

 during tliat time, in no other branch of Natural Science has there been so much real 

 and rapid progress as in that to which the microscope is so indispensable a necessity 

 for minute research. 



Embryology, Histology, minute external structure, and the development of 

 Cryptogaraic plants, have, each and all, proved themselves to be so intimately mixed 

 up with all the important scientific questions of the day, that we can only surmise 

 what Leeuwenhock and other old naturalists would have been able to do, and what 

 revolutions in ideas might have been caused in the last and preceding centuries, if 

 optical science had then been equal to their powers of observation. At the present 

 day, microscopists appear to be divided into two classes. First, those who, being 

 in possession of a good instrument, and a miscellaneous assortment of objects, 

 examine these latter seriatim, and end with no further benefit than does the child 

 who is pleased with the varied images exhibited in a kaleidoscope. Secondly, those 

 who work with a definite object : — and every real Natui-alist will be found in this 

 category. To either class tins work will be indispensable. Those who make the 

 microscope a toy will find it necessary to increase their pleasures (and, perchance, may 

 be led to higher aims thereby) ; those who work seriously will find in its pages that 

 help without which many valuable hoiu's and days would be wasted. 



Entomological Society of London : ^th December, 1874. — Sir S. S. Saundebs, 

 O.M.G., President, in the Chair. 



Lieut. H. C. Harford, 99th Eegimcnt, C. C. Bupre, Esq., of Coleridge Koad, 

 Holloway, and Owen Wilson, Esq., of Cwmffrwd, Carmarthen, were elected Members ; 

 and M. Greenwood, Esq., of Q.ueen's Road, Dalston, a Subscriber. 



Mr. E. A. Fitch exhibited several oak-galls, illustrating his notes at p. 109 of 

 the present Vol. of this Magazine, together with others that he had not yet been 

 able to determine. 



Mr. Champion exhibited a fine collection of Semiptera sent by Mr. J. J. Walker, 

 by whom they were collected in various Mediterranean localities. 



Prof. Westwood communicated a letter received from Mr. F. M. H. Slone, con- 

 cerning damage occasioned to tea from Shanghai by a small beetle which proved to 

 be Niptus hololeucus ; also a letter from Prof. Forel, of Lausanne, stating that 

 Phylloxera vastatrix had appeared at Pregny, in the Canton G-eneva, on some vines 

 that had been imported from England into the hot-houses of Baron Rothschild. 

 With regard to a question put by Prof. Forel, as to whether out-door vines were 

 infested in England, it appeared to the opinion of the meeting that the pest liad only 

 been observed here in hot-houses. 



Mr. C. O. Waterhouse read " Synonymic Notes on Longicom Coleoptera." 



Ath January, 1875. — Sir S. S. Saundkrs, C.M.G., President, in the Cliair. 



Mr. S. Stevens exhibited a bred example of Diloba cceruleocephala , in which the 

 stigmatiform markings, ordinarily so conspicuous, were entirely wanting, and a 

 striking variety of Hybernia defoliaria, both from Brighton. 



