PEOCEEDINGS FOR 1884. XXVir 



injurious to our forest trees and field crops. In addition to this, a circular is being now prepared for 

 circulation among the farmers and agriculturists of the province, requesting them to report as 

 promptly as possible on any insects which they tind injuring their crops, with a view to the sugges- 

 tion of appropriate remedies. 



The membership of the Society still increases, and now stands at about 400, and we have on our 

 roll members who are working for us in every province in the Dominion, as well as many of the lead- 

 ing entomologists in the United States. We have, however, to deplore with the whole scientific world 

 the loss by death, diu-ing the past year, of some of our most active members. Of these special men- 

 tion may be made of Professor Croft, the founder of our Society, and Dr. J. L. LeConte, the cele- 

 brated coleopterist. 



The large collections of the Society have been further added to and the Library considerably aug- 

 mented,— their usefulness for purposes of reference and study thus being much increased. 



At the request of the Dominion Government, the Society undertook the preparation of a collec- 

 tion of specimens designed to illustrate insects injurious and beneficial to fish, to be exhibited in the 

 International Fisheries Exhibition, held last year in England. This collection, consisting of forty cases, 

 was prepared and sent forward to London, where it formed a most useful and attractive feature of the 

 Canadian Exhibit, and its merits were recognized by the award of a silver medal. 



The council of the Entomological Society of Ontario are glad to learn that the suggestions con- 

 tained in their Eeport to your honorable Society last year, with regaid to increased facilities for the 

 transmission of Natural History specimens by mail, are, in response to a petition from the naturalists 

 and students of science in Canada, receiving favourable consideration from the Honourable the Post- 

 master General, and they trust that the Royal Society of Canada will continue to use its influence in 



this direction on behalf of students of Natural History. 



J. Fletcher, Delegate. 



XII. From the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, through Dr. Harper : — 



The Society, which I have the honour to repi'esent as delegate, is, if not the oldest Literary 

 Society organized in Canada, at least one of the oldest, and, at the present moment, perhaps the only 

 one, which enjoys the dignity of an Imperial charter. Like the Royal Society of Canada, the Literary 

 and Historical Society of Quebec had for its founder one of the Governors-General of Canada. It 

 had also, as a model for its organization, the constitution of that- highly distinguished body, so well- 

 known to every literary society in America, the Literarj^ and Historical Society of New York. It 

 was towards the end of the year 1823, that Lord Dalhousie laid the foundation of our Society. Ably 

 assisted by Dr. John Charlton Fisher, joint editor of the New York Albion, and enthusiastically sup- 

 ported by many of the prominent citizens of Quebec, the Governoi'-General had the satisfaction of 

 seeing the Society fully organized before the end of 1824, when it was placed on a permanent basis 

 through the liberality of the Government, which voted a sum of money to defray the expenses con- 

 nected with the Society's early efforts in collecting the scattered materials of Canadian History ; it 

 was, moreover, this fund which enabled the Society to persevere in a work that has earned for it a 

 name in connection with the archives of Canada and their perservation. 



The honours which have been conferred upon our Society from time to time have been fittingly 

 crowned by the invitation of the Royal Society to send a delegate to its annual meetings ; and yet 

 Mr. President, with 3'ou in the chair, and supported as you are b}' such distinguished fellow- townsmen 

 as Mr. LeMoine, Mi-. Faucher de St. Maurice, Mr. George Stewart, jun., and many others who are 

 members of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, I may venture to say that the honour has 

 been purchased at a fair exchange, — an exchange which our Society endorses with the greatest pride 

 in seeing you, sir, and these gentlemen occupying such a high position in Canadian Literature. It is, 

 therefore, with the pai-donable feeling that its activity has done something towards the development 



