( Ixxvii ) 



Outside the number of our own Fellows, we miss four well- 

 known names from the ranks of British entomologists : — 

 William Duppa Crotch, M.A., F.L.S., a keen student of the 

 Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Hemiptera ; Edward Robert 

 Dale, son of the eminent J. C. Dale, and himself an eager 

 entomologist in his younger days ; The Very Rev. Caxox 

 Bernard Smith of Great Marlow, an enthusiastic collector and 

 breeder of the British Lepidoptera ; Samuel James Wilkinson, 

 author of the celebrated " British Tortiices," published in 

 1859. 



We sympathise deeply with our brethren on the continent 

 in their grief for the eminent men who have passed away in 

 1903 : — Johannes Faust, the eminent authority upon the 

 CurcuUonidse, whose collection contained over 13,000 species, 

 of Avhich more than 2000 were described by himself ; Pro- 

 fessor Augustus Radcliffe Grote, A.M., the celebrated 

 student of the Lepidoptera. 



"WHAT IS A SPECIES?" 



The late Professor Max Miiller, in an eloquent speech 

 delivered at Reading in 1891, spoke of the necessity of 

 examining, and, as time passes by, re-examining the meaning 

 of words. He referred as an illustration to the man at the 

 railway station who taps the wheels with his hammer, test- 

 ing whether each still rings true or has undergone some 

 change that may mean disaster. In almost the same way, 

 the speaker maintained, a word may slowly and unobtrusively 

 change its meaning, becoming, unless critically tested to 

 ascertain whether it still rings true, a danger instead of an 

 aid to clear thinking, a pitfall on the field of controversy. 

 He then went on to say, that Darwin had written a great 

 work upon the Origin of Species, and had never once explained 

 what he meant by the word Species. So decided an utterance 

 — the statement was made emphatically — ought to have in- 

 volved a careful and critical search through the pages of 

 the work that was attacked. However this may be, it is 

 quite certain that the search was unsuccessful; and yet a 

 few minutes' investigation brought me to a passage in which 

 the meaning attached by the author to the term Species is set 



