( Ixxiii ) 



THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen, 



It is a great pleasure to congratulate the Society at the 

 close of another successful year. The repetition of this con- 

 gratulation in successive Annual Addresses is happily almost 

 monotonous. It is a monotony which will never weary vis, 

 and in itself an indication that no other monotony has 

 prevailed. 



The meetings have been well attended, there have been 

 numerous, varied, and interesting exhibits leading to animated 

 discussions. Our Transactions do not I'each the phenomenal 

 dimensions attained in 1902, but still form a noble volume, 

 containing 23 plates and well over 600 pages. There is a 

 pleasing variety in the papers, and the domination of the 

 Lepidoptera is less pronounced than usual. An important 

 share of the space is occupied by memoirs on the Coleoptera, 

 Hymenoptera, and Insect Bionomics, while the Diptera and 

 Rhynchota are also represented. 



I should wish to refer again to the warmth of the greeting 

 received as your President at a meeting of the Entomological 

 Society of France on April 22nd. The cordial friendship 

 between the followers of science in all lands is of happy augury 

 for the advancement of the researches in which we find common 

 aims and mutual sympathy and respect. 



On this, the first occasion on which I have the honour of 

 addressing you formally, I cannot resist the temptation of 

 calling attention to a remarkable coincidence of a personal 

 nature — the fact that the pi-esent occupant of this Chair and 

 his immediate predecessor should be members not only of the 

 same University, but of the same College, and that not a large 

 one. When this fact was explained to a friend he said it 

 was easily understood, because the study of natural history is 

 infectious. This suggestion, plausible as it is, fails to account 

 for the fact ; inasmuch as Canon Fowler left Jesus College, 



