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NOTES AND OBSEEVATIONS. 



Proposed Handbook of British Odonata. — We are very pleased 

 to learn that Mr. L. Upcott Gill, the well-known publisher in the 

 Strand, has conceived the idea of producing an illustrated Handbook 

 to the British Dragonflies, and that he will immediately carry this out, 

 if the small number of two hundred persons enter their names as sub- 

 scribers at the modest sum of half a guinea. When it is understood 

 that Mr. W. J. Lucas, with whose work on this group readers of the 

 ' Entomologist ' are familiar, is to write the book, we feel assured the 

 project will not be allowed to fall through for lack of support. 

 According to the prospectus before us, "it is proposed that the work 

 shall contain beautifully coloured plates of the British Dragonflies, 

 typical drawings in black-and-white of the eggs and nymphs, and 

 structural figures of a very large number of microscopic and other 

 details necessary for the careful study of the group, as well as certain 

 other illustrations for the further elucidation of descriptive matter in 

 the text. The plates are to be prepared from the author's drawings 

 direct from nature, and therefore as to their accuracy there can be no 

 question." 



The rapid sequence in the publication of works on more or less 

 neglected groups and orders of British insects, each written by an 

 authority on the special subject dealt with, may be regarded as a sign 

 of progress, indicating as it seems to do that there is a demand for 

 such works, and consequently that the number of students of those 

 groups has increased. The wider interest of British entomologists in 

 the insect fauna of their own country is not the least remarkable of the 

 many noteworthy entomological events of the end of the nineteenth 

 century. So recently as twenty years ago, not very much attention 

 was given to anything outside Lepidoptera, and even in this order only 

 native productions were greatly in favour. The student of to-day 

 finds that the limited lepidopterous fauna of the British Islands does 

 not afford all the material he requires to enable him to attain a full 

 knowledge of his subject. He, therefore, either seeks the assistance 

 of his confreres abroad, or himself visits foreign lands in quest of speci- 

 mens and information. Then, again, there are many entomologists 

 in this country who having completed, or almost completed, their col- 

 lections of butterflies and moths, take up the study of other orders, and 

 in adding species after species to the new collection renew the pleasure 

 they experienced when forming their series of Lepidoptera. Trust- 

 worthy handbooks, well illustrated, should be a distinct boon to the 

 class last referred to, and no doubt they often induce a worker in a new 

 field to continue when he feels upon the point of giving up. 



South-eastern Union of Scientific Societies. — The third Annual 

 Congress of the Union will be held in the Town Hall, Croydon, on 

 June 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, under the presidency of the Rev. T. R. R. 

 Stebbing, M.A., F.R.S. Among the papers to be read on June 3rd is 

 one by Mr. J. W. Tutt, entitled " Entomology as a Scientific Pursuit " ; 

 this will be given during the morning meeting, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. In 

 the evening of the same date Mr. Fred. Enock will present the " Life- 



