16 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
life histories and distribution of the insects that affect the crops and 
fruits and domestic animals throughout Great Britain. For twenty- 
three years she has been publishing at her own expense annual “Reports 
of Observations of Injurious Insects,” in which are recorded the results 
of her own investigations and a digest of information gathered by a 
large circle of correspondents in every part of the country. She has 
also published at intervals hand-books, manuals and text-books, treating 
of various departments of economic entomology. Though unaided and 
unsupported by the Government authorities she has carried on for nearly 
a quarter of a century the work of a State entomologist and experimental 
station. It is gratifying to know that well-deserved honours have been 
bestowed upon her by scientific societies in many parts of the world, and 
that last month there was conferred upon her by the University of 
Edinburgh, the honorary degree of LL.D.,—the first time in its history 
that it has awarded such a distinction to a woman. It is earnestly to be 
hoped that Miss Ormerod may long be spared to continue her most use- 
ful and unselfish labours for the benefit of the community at large. 
In other parts of the British Empire entomological work of an 
economic character is being carried on; by Mr. Walter W. Froggatt, 
Government Entomologist in New South Wales, Australia, and Mr. 
Charles P. Lounsbury at Cape Town, South Africa; similar valuable 
work is also being vigorously prosecuted in connection with the Indian 
Museum at Calcutta. 
Before closing these remarks, I cannot refrain from alluding to the 
irreparable loss that this section in particular has sustained as well as 
the whole Royal Society, and the cause of science in general, in the la- 
mented death of Sir J. Wiliam Dawson. Few scientific men in any 
country have attained to greater celebrity and a more world-wide reputa- 
tion than he, and in the annals of Canada he towers far above any of 
those who have devoted themselves to scientific pursuits. His name 
will always be held in veneration in this country as that of one who did 
a noble and enduring work in his day and generation. Whether we look 
at the nearly forty years he devoted to raising up McGill University from 
the position of a feeble college to the magnificent institution that we 
see it now, or at the immense number of books and papers that came 
from his pen in constant succession during the busy years of a long life, 
we must be filled with admiration for the ability, the perseverance and 
the industry of the man. Few have ever accomplished so much; few 
have left behind them such enduring monuments to their genius ; few 
have written so much of abiding value, and so much that aims at the 
highest interests of humanity and is so absolutely free from anything 
that can injure or debase. He was one of those rare men who unite in 

