( xlii ) 



continue to do so, as I cannot imagine that tlie Society would 

 ever get a better one. I do not tliiuk that he ever lets slip a 

 possible subscription, while he understands from his wide know- 

 ledge of Entomologists where a kiudly relaxation of stringent 

 rules may be exercised, and I can only repeat what I said last 

 year, that while in the straitened finances of the Society 

 in the old days he held the sti-ings most tightly, he has equally 

 known how to loosen those strings when he can afford to do 

 so, and especially when he has thought that by doing so the 

 Society would benefit not only in Britain bat throughout the 

 world. Tliere is another Officer of the Society who has done 

 a very large amount of hard but insufficiently recognised work 

 during the past year or two ; I refer to our Librarian, Mr. 

 G. C. Champion, who has gone through tlie laborious task 

 of preparing a Supplemental Catalogue of our Library ; I 

 know that this task has been a very heavy one, because to 

 begin with it has entailed the inclusion of all the books and 

 pamphlets which were bequeathed to the Society by the widow 

 of the late Mr. H. T. Stainton, which constituted, I believe, the 

 most important bequest ever made to the Society, while one of 

 our late Secretaries, Mr. W. F, H. Blandford, has given valuable 

 assistance to Mr. Champion in identifying the items of tliat 

 bequest, as well as himself presenting a very large number 

 of books and pamphlets to the Library, for which I do not 

 think proper thanks have ever been given to him, and he has 

 rendered services since he resigned the Secretaryship which 

 have not been sufficiently acknowledged. 



OBITUARY 



William Blundell Spence, who died at Florence on January 

 23rd, six days after I was referring to him in my last Presi- 

 dential Address, was the sole surviving original Member of 

 this Society which was founded in 1833. He did but little 

 work in Entomology, though he probably assisted his father, 

 whose name is indissolubly connected with Kirby and Spence's 

 Entomology. He was in his 87th year. By his death Mr. 

 J. W. Douglas (1845) becomes the senior living Fellow of 



