X EOYAL SUCIETY OP CANADA. 



maintained in Montreal, and though wc have there suffered a severe blow during the past year in the 

 death of our esteemed President, Mr. G. J. Bowles, an enthusiastic entomologist, and for several years 

 a member of the editorial committee of the Canadian Entomologist, I have great hopes of our being 

 able to keep the branch in active operation. 



The monthly joui-nal of the societj', the Canadian Entomologist has been regularly issued during 

 the ])a8t yeai', and still continues to hold its place as the leading magazine devoted exclusively to 

 entomology published on this continent. It has completed its nineteenth volume and entered upon its 

 twentieth. The former consists of 240 pages of reading matter, with one plate besides the index. 

 The subject matter is fully up to the standard of former volumes, both in interest and importance. 

 Three new genera and sixty-two new species were described in it and the contributors to its pages, 

 amounting to thirty-seven in number, embrace a considerable proportion of the active and eminent 

 entomologists of this continent as well as others of less note. 



For a number of years past, one of the most imj»ortant and valuable features of the Entomologist 

 has been the very full description of the preparatory stages, or life-historie.9, of a considerable nnmber 

 of butterflies and some beetles, which have heon contributed by entomologists eminent in their 

 respective branches. These descrijitions have been accumulating from year to J'ear, and now amount 

 to a very lai-ge number in comparison with the number of those whose early stages were known 

 Hfleen or twenty years ago. 



The annual report of the society for the year 1887, has been somewhat delayed, not having yet 

 been issued to the mcmbei's, but it is expected to be distributed within a few daj's, and will, no doubt, 

 be quite up to the high standard of the reports of previous years. 



The very important collection of insects exhibited by the society, at the Colonial and Indian 

 Exhibition, was dulj' returned to the society's headquarters at London, Ontario. Upon examination 

 it was found, that some of the specimens had been badly damaged on the journey, as was naturally 

 to be expected, and that many others had suffered very much fi'om the long-continued exposure to 

 the light at the E.xhibilion, as must inevitably occur under similar ciicumstances. The Society has 

 accordingly issued a list of species required to place its collection again in perfect ordei', ami though 

 the list is large, many have already been received, and it is to be hoped that the remainder ot the 

 specimens needed, may be forthcoming from the members at no distant day. 



The establishment in connection with the Department of Agriculture of the Central Experimental 

 Farm, under the able direction of Mr. William Saunders, a former President of the Entomological 

 Society, and the appointment to the position of Entomologist, in connection with the same, of so able 

 and active an entomologist as Mr. James Fletcher, the present President of the Society, is likely to 

 prove of vast importance to the country. 



The active work which is now being carried on, will certainly prove of great benefit to the 

 agriculturists of this country, not only by showing what crops it will be best to grow, but also how to 

 preserve those crojJS from the destructive ravages of their tiny insect foes. 



III. — From The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, through Mr. William Wood : — 



During the past year, the society has suffered from lack of funds. Owing to the withdrawal of 

 the customary Covernraent grant, the publication of vaUudjle MSS. is, for the present, in abeyance. 

 It is expected that the grant will be again obtained, when the Society will bo enabled to fulâl, as in the 

 past, one of its most important functions. 



The membership is not so lai-ge as it ought to be; but we are in no worse plight than other 

 societies of similar aims, and there are signs of some improvement. The library has Iiecn freely used, 

 and many standard works of literature, history and science have been eonsidtcd ; though the general 

 reader's thirst for fiction is quite as great in Quebec as it is elsewhere. 



A very active office-holder was lost to the Society by the death of Mr. Eoderick McLeod, its 



