96 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



brought by the present generation of workers, that not only this 

 Society but Entomology as a whole can now well afford to spare 

 the labours of some of its younger and rising members, and 

 should moreover encourage them, by every means in its power, to 

 give increased attention to the important subject which I have 

 ventured to bring to your notice this evening. 



I have said along the same lines, but I do not admit those lines 

 to be the best that could be desired. It is much more likely 

 that the classification of our insects will eventually be considered 

 historically ; the ideal arrangement being based upon the deve- 

 lopment of internal structure and genealogy rather than upon 

 any arbitrary divisions resting solely upon features of an external 

 character as at the present day. 



The study of life-history is in its broadest interpretation 

 divisible into two portions, which may be conveniently described 

 as — (1) observation of the habits of the living insect, and (2) the 

 examination of its parts. The first of these can of course be 

 pursued separately, but the diligent student who enjoys the 

 advantage conferred by even a moderately good microscope will 

 be well advised to combine the two, since some knowledge of 

 the anatomy of his subject, no matter in how small a degree, will 

 always be of great service to him in the intelligent interpretation 

 of much in the life of an insect which may otherwise prove 

 puzzling and obscure. 



Of the systems of teaching of various naturalists with whose 

 methods I have become acquainted, that of Dollinger, of Wiirz- 

 burg, was most successful ; the fact that such men as Pander, 

 Baer, and Agassiz were amongst his pupils speaks for itself. In 

 our own times his system has been followed by the late Professor 

 Huxley and other eminent workers ; although at the present day 

 the great bulk of zoologists in general — and I think I may add 

 entomologists in particular — appear to be almost entirely en- 

 gaged in renaming, reclassifying, and the rearrangement of 

 generic and specific values, rather than in any systematic attempt 

 to elucidate much that is as yet unknown of the habits and 

 functions of the living animals themselves. That there are 

 several distinguished exceptions I am well aware ; their compara- 

 tive smallness of number, however, seems but to accentuate the 

 assertion advanced. 



But that one epoch of life is not all life is a truism throughout 

 the universe ; and just as at one end of the chain of natural 

 phenomena there are cycles or periods of time, at the expiration 

 of which certain aspects of the giant heavenly bodies repeat 

 themselves, and at the other well-marked though irregular and 

 less understood recurrences of the abnormal assertion and activity 

 of insect and other minute life ; so, too, perhaps does the ento- 

 mological student of life-history enjoy his periodicity, and in the 

 fulness of time, through the exceedingly obscure albeit, usually 



