XXVIII. 
by pressure of other duties and their ranks depleted by removals from Sydney to such 
an extent that a steady supply of papers could not be kept up; for they were all 
busy public or professional men who in such leisure moments as they could command 
devoted themselves to the study of natural history out of love for it, and with the 
desire to promote the welfare of their favourite branch. 
Though all the aspirations of its founders were not fulfilled during its eleven 
years’ existence, somewhat fitful towards the last, nevertheless the Entomological 
Society of New South Wales rendered real and important service to the cause of 
biology in Australia. By bringing together a number of gentlemen for the most part 
previously strangers to each other, and by arousing their interest it gave an impetus 
to collecting, to observation, and to the study of entomology generally not only 
within the colony of New South Wales but elsewhere, so that at the present time 
the votaries of entomology are to be found in every colony and outnumber those of 
any other branch. 
Nor is there wanting a permanent and useful record of the Society’s labours, to 
be found in the shape of two volumes of Transactions still indispensable to working 
naturalists in certain groups, and happily not yet “out of print” and therefore more 
or less inaccessible to those who most need to consult them, as is so often and so 
provokingly the case with some of the earlier Australian scientific productions. And 
on several grounds these volumes are worthy of notice. They—or at least the first of 
them which was published in five parts issued as follows: Part i. in 1863, Part ii. in 
1864, Parts ili.-iv. in 1864, and Part v. in 1866—were the first scientific publications 
issued by a Scientific Society in New South Wales; they represent the first important 
contributions from local workers to a knowledge of Australian Entomology in which 
attempts were made to deal with large groups, or to work up exhaustively large 
collections from particular localities. In this way there received attention the 
Pselaphide, the Scaritide, the Glaphyride, the Scydmenides, the Amycteride, the 
Anthicide, andthe Byrrhide; while important additions were made to the Crcindelide, 
the Buprestidae, and the Cetontade, and by Mr. Scott to the Lepidoptera. For the 
first time, too, there were brought into notice such interesting novelties as the 
remarkable gall-making Coccids of the subfamily Brachysceline, a group which from 
the symmetry, extraordinary shape constant for each species, and in some cases large 
size of the galls resulting from their operations upon the Eucalypts more particularly, 
would attract notice among gall-makers of any group; the fly Batrachomyia which 
oviposits upon frogs beneath whose integument the larve partially complete their 
metamorphosis, and which when about to oviposit must take some considerable pains 
to find a suitable host as all the frogs known to serve as such are nocturnal in their 
habits; of the curious blind beetle, /aphanus, Macleay, found under stones near 
Wollongong, and as yet not met with elsewhere; and of various species of Coleoptera 
