315 



from the whole city -would be £400. Following this to the 

 assessment valuation, the £130 become £5,200: here probably 

 this calculation of a 40 times diflference fails to approach the 

 valuation of to-day. 



As with the question of population, these points are only 

 mentioned to enable the mind to realise somewhat the very great 

 differences and the many difBculties always to be encountered 

 when considering these subjects in relation to our early days. 



Bemarh on some Hemiptera-Eeteroptera taken in the Neighbourhood 

 of Bath. By Lieut. -Col. Blathwayt, F.L.S., F.E.S. 



(Bead February 8th, 18S8). 



One hundred and twenty years ago Linnaeus completed the 

 plan of his Systema Naturae ; he was then acquainted with about 

 3,000 species of insects. Stephens, writing in 1839, says that he 

 then possessed 11,898 species of British insects in his own 

 collection ; and Professor Westwood, about the same time, in his 

 "Modern Classification of Insects," stated that the number of 

 beetles with which entomologists were actually acquainted could 

 not be less than 35,000 ; and now, in the opinion of Dr, Sharp, 

 the President of the Entomological Society, there are in the 

 collections of the Avorld, at least 200,000 species of insects; he 

 said also that from collections made by recent travellers, and 

 from other data, he inferred that we very likely do not possess 

 as yet more than one tenth of those existing. This would give 

 a total of 2,000,000 species. 



In Linnaeus' time an entomologist might say he studied all 

 insects ; but, as the number of known species increased, he would 

 have to restrict himself to orders, and now a single Family, or 

 even a gemis, is about as much as one person can well undertake. 

 Buck ton's recent "Monograph on the Aphides" — restricted to 



