THE PKESIDENT'S ADDKESS. 



Gentlemen, 



In accordance with time-honoured custom in this 

 and other Scientific Societies of the metropohs, I commence the 

 Presidential Address of the year with a hrief notice of the hves 

 and labours of those members who have been lost to us by death 

 during the period that has elapsed since the previous anniversary. 

 Happily the list on the present occasion is a short one ; but it 

 contains the name of one who during his life time occupied a 

 prominent position in the Entomological world, and whose loss 

 has created a void in an important branch of om* science which 

 is most distinctly felt. I allude to om- deceased member, 

 Mr. William Chapman Hewitson. 



Mr. Hewitson was born at Newcas.tle-on-Tyne in the year 

 1806 : he was consequently seventy-two years old when he died 

 on the 28th of May last. His health from childhood upwards 

 was always delicate, and his later years were spent in a continual 

 struggle with his constitutional infirmities. Yet he lived to an 

 age which exceeded the proverbial three score years and ten, 

 and we may be permitted to believe that the prolongation of his 

 life and activity was in great measm'e due to the beneficial effects 

 of a pursuit which aflbrds so constant a supply of novelty and 

 interest to keep the faculties in healthy employment. But in his 

 case there were superadded the favourable cu'cumstances atten- 

 dant on a position of afliuence, and the wise habit which he 

 cultivated of restricting his studies and work, in extent and 

 amount, to what he could leisurely accomplish. As is so often 

 the case with Natm-alists whose devotion to their pm'suit is of 

 life-long duration, his tastes declared themselves at an early age. 

 He appears first to have given his principal attention to the 

 Biitish Lepidoptera, his name frequently occurring in Stephens' 

 ' Illustrations,' beginning with the year 1828, in connection with 



