Ixiii 



interpellating the Executive. Now is the time for discussing the 

 policy of the Council, criticising its acts or omissions, and 

 requiring explanations of its conduct. It would he a healthy 

 sign if memhers would exhihit some of the interest they douhtless 

 feel in the management of our affairs, hy giving us the henefit of 

 their criticism and their counsel. When for a series of years the 

 Beport is accepted without a word of comment or inquiry, a 

 suspicion is begotten that the Society is too acquiescent, and 

 would not even be roused into activity if a Report were altogether 

 wanting. 



I regret that we have been unable to retain the services of 

 Mr. Jenner Weir as our Treasurer. Mr. Yarrell filled that post 

 for eighteen, Mr. Stevens for twenty years ; but seven years have 

 sufficed for their two successors. Of all our officers the Treasurer 

 is the one who should be least often changed, and I hope 

 the result of this evening's ballot will be the election of a 

 gentleman whom we may regard as a fixture for some years 

 to come. 



During the year 1879 our numbers have not increased ; we 

 have enlisted nine recruits, but the new comers barely counter- 

 balance our losses. 



The death of Mr. Nathaniel Clissold Tuely, of Wimbledon 

 Park ; of Mr. John Dawson, of Carron ; of M. Edouard Pictet, 

 of Geneva ; of jNIr. Thomas Chapman, of Glasgow ; and of Mr. 

 Noah Greening, of Warrington, lias deprived us of five colleagues 

 whom we had not often the advantage of seeing in this room. 

 Mr. Greening's collection of British Lepidoptera was unrivalled 

 in the North of England, and the Northern Entomological Society 

 loses in him one of its founders and most energetic supporters. 

 Edouard Pictet, the distinguished son of a more distinguished 

 father, was the possessor of a grand collection of European 

 Lepidoptera, but will be best remembered as an entomologist by 

 his ' Synopsis des Nevropteres d'Espagne,' published in 18G5. 



Our first, and for some years our only, lady-member was 

 Mrs. Hope, the wife of the Piev. F. W. Hope, a name still 

 cherished among us. Having survived her husband for more 

 than seventeen years, Mrs. Hope died on tlie 27th November last, 

 one of her latest acts having been a protest against a suggested 

 alteration of the founder's scheme in relation to the Hopeian 

 Professorship at Oxford. 



