( Ixxxi ) 



promise. The time which we give to Societies such as this — 

 time we are sometimes apt to grudge — is well spent. Here, 

 and in kindred communities, a "man sharpeneth the counten- 

 ance of his friend," and there is born of the influence of mind 

 upon mind thought which is not a mere resultant of diverse 

 forces, but a new creation. 



The scientific man who shuts himself away from his fellow- 

 men, in the belief that he is thereby obtaining conditions the 

 most favourable for research, is grievously mistaken. Man, 

 scientific man perhaps more inevitably than others, is a social 

 animal, and the contrast between the lives of Darwin and 

 Burchell shows us that friendly sympathy with our brother 

 naturalists is an essential element in successful and continued 

 investigation. 



I do not suppose that it is necessaiy to justify a discussion 

 of the term "species" as the subject of the Anniversary 

 Address to the Entomological Society of London. The students 

 of insect form and function hold an exalted place among 

 naturalists. The material of their researches enables them, 

 almost compels them, to take the keenest and most active 

 interest in broad questions affecting the history and course of 

 life on our planet. Naturalists engaged upon other groups 

 may reasonably inquire why insects, above all other animals, 

 should be so especially valuable for the elucidation of the 

 larger problems which deal, not only with the species of a 

 single group, but with every one of the innumerable and 

 infinitely varied forms, vegetable no less than animal, in 

 which life manifests itself. The answer is to be found in the 

 large number of offspring produced by each pair of insects, 

 and the rapidity with which the generations succeed each 

 other, many cycles being completed in a single year in warm 

 countries ; in the severity of the sti-uggle for life which 

 prevents this remarkable rate of multiplication fiona becom- 

 ing the cause of any progressive increase in the number of 

 individuals ; and finally, in the character of the struggle 

 itself, which is precisely of that highly specialised kind 

 between the keen senses and activities of enemies, and the 

 means of concealment or other modes of defence of their 

 insect prey, which leads, by action and answering reaction, to 



PROC. ENT, SOC. LOND., V, 1903. G 



