ON THE POSSIBILITY OF TAKING A ZOOLOGICAL CENSUS. 23 
bands ; legs testaceous ; wings cinereous ; with a brownish tinge along 
the costa; discal transverse vein straight, parted by one fourth of its 
length from the border and by about its length from the oblique pre- 
brachial transverse vein; halteres testaceous. Length of the body 6 
lines; of the wings 9 lines. 
Gen. Sopntra, Walk. 
14. SopHIRA BIPARS, vn. s. Fem. Fulva, nitens, abdomine nigro bas; 
fulvo, alis nigris margine postico cinereo limpido-interlineato. 
Female. Tawny, shining, with a few black bristles; head and pectus 
paler ; 3rd jomt of the antennz linear, rounded at the tip, not reach- 
ing the epistoma; arista simple ; abdomen oval, black except towards 
the base, shorter than the thorax ; wings black, with a cinereous partly 
limpid stripe on the hind border ; this stripe is interrupted by a black 
streak which extends along the discal transverse line ; a pale point on 
the middle of the costa; discal transverse vein straight, parted by 
half its length from the border, and by about its length from the 
prebrachial transverse, which is rather long. Length of the body 24 
lines; of the wings 7 lines. 
——s ee 
On the Possibility of taking a Zoological Census. 
By Atrrep Newroy, M.A., F.LS. 
[Read March 21, 1861.] 
Ir is now nearly five years since my friend, the late Mr. John 
Wolley, to whose genius as a naturalist I am proud to own my many 
great obligations, suggested to me in a letter the possibility of 
taking a census of the birds of these islands. The period of 
numbering the human population of the British Empire, which is 
now so close at hand, makes me think the present time, when 
men’s minds are turned to the subject, not inopportune to bring 
to the notice of this Society the advantages which might possibly 
accrue to Zoology by taking an approximate census, not only of 
our birds, but also of the other divisions of our fauna. I believe 
that naturalists will bear me out in the assertion that hitherto 
nothing of this kind has ever been attempted in any branch of the 
science, and also that (with perhaps very few, but highly laudable, 
exceptions) no writer has ventured to express in any convenient 
form the relative proportion which the number of individuals of 
one species bears to those of another. In almost all local faunas 
the abundance or scarcity of different species is expressed in very 
arbitrary, not to say vague, terms. We find nothing more definite 
than the words “common,” “frequently met with,’ “rare” or 
“occasionally seen’? appended to the names of animals in some 
