SOCIETIES. 65 



January \Qth, 1895. — Sixty-second Annuai Meetiny. — Henry John 

 Elwes, Esq., F.L.S., President, in the chair. An abstract of the 

 Treasurer's accounts, showing a good balance in the Society's favour, 

 having been read by Mr. W. F. H. BLandford, one of the Auditors, 

 Mr. H. Goss read the Eeport of the Council. It was then announced 

 that the following gentlemen had been elected as Officers and Council 

 for 1895 : — President, Professor Raphael Meldola, F.R.S. ; Treasurer, 

 Mr. Robert McLachlan, F.R.S. ; Secretaries, Mr. Herbert Goss, 

 F.L.S., and the Rev. Canon Fowler, M.A., F.L.S. ; Librarian, 

 Mr. George C. Champion, F.Z.S. ; and as other Members of the 

 Council, Mr. George T. Bethune-Baker, F.L.S. ; Mr. Walter F. H. 

 Blandford, M.A., F.Z.S. ; Dr. Frederick A. Dixey, M.A. ; Mr. Henry 

 J. Elwes, F.L.S. ; Mr. Charles J. Gahan, M.A. ; Professor Edward B. 

 Poulton, M. A., F.R.S. ; Dr. David Sharp, M.A., F.R.S. ; and the Right 

 Hon. Lord Walsingham, LL.D., F.R.S. It was also announced that 

 Professor Meldola, the new President, would appoint Lord Walsing- 

 ham, Mr. Henry J. Elwes, and Professor Edward B. Poulton, Vice- 

 Presidents for the Session 1895-6. The outgoing President then 

 delivered an interesting address " On the Geographical Distribution of 

 Insects.'' He remarked that though a great deal had been written of 

 late years on the geographical distribution of plants, mammals, birds, 

 fishes, and reptiles, comparatively little had yet been done by entomo- 

 logists to show how far the natural divisions of the earth's surface 

 which have been established for other classes were applicable to 

 insects. Perhaps the proportion of known as compared with unknown 

 insects was still too small, and the classification of the known species 

 still too uncertain, to allow anything like the same methods to be 

 applied to insects that had been used for mammals by Dr. Wallace, 

 for birds by Dr. Sclater and Dr. Bowdler-Sharpe, and for plants by 

 Sir Joseph Hooker, Mr. Thistleton Dyer, and Mr. W. B. Hemsley. The 

 President enumerated the genera of the Rhopalocera, and pointed out 

 which of them were characteristic of the various regions and sub- 

 regions into which the world had been divided by the zoologists and 

 botanists above-mentioned. He also exhibited specimens typical of 

 these regions and sub -regions. The President then alluded to the 

 prosperous condition of the Society, and to the increase in its numbers 

 and income. Reference was also made to various Fellows of the 

 Society and other entomologists who had died during the year, special 

 mention being made of Herr H. T. Christoph, Mr. J. Jenner Weir, 

 Dr. F. Buchanan White, Mons. Lucieu F. Lethierry, Pastor Wallen- 

 gren, Dr. Jacob Spunberg, Major-General Carden, Dr. Hearder, and 

 Mr. Wellmau. A vote of thanks to the President and other Officers 

 of the Society having been passed, Mr. Elwes, Mr. McLachlan, Mr. H. 

 Goss, and Canon Fowler replied, and the proceedings terminated. — 

 H. Goss & W. W. Fowler, Hon. Secretaries. 



South London Entomological and Natural History Society. — 

 November 22nd, 1894.— Mr. E. Step, President, in the chair. Mr. 

 Barrett exhibited, on behalf of Mr. Sydney Webb, a grand series of 

 varieties of Arclia villica, L., from one with very few black markings to 

 one almost wholly suffused with black ; also, on behalf of Major Still, 

 specimens taken on Dartmoor this year, to show the apparent influence 



ENTOM. — FEB. 1895. G 



