Ixviii 



for instance, the stridulating power of the Mantidce, Brazilian 

 Caddis-flies and their cases, flights of locusts and migrations of 

 butterflies, flowers and their unbidden guests, the destruction 

 of insects by flowers, sericiculture, the metamorphoses of the 

 blister-beetle, the mimicry of insects by insects, the effects 

 of temperature upon insects and insect-life, the existence of 

 branchiae in the imago-state of certain Trichoptera, sculptured 

 markings on cretaceous pebbles from the Lake of Geneva sup- 

 posed to be due to insect agency, sugar-cane borers, the correlation 

 of mutilation in the larva with deformity in the imago, and 

 variations in larva of Sinerinthus ocellatus fed on different species 

 of Sal'ix. It has afforded me additional pleasure to observe how 

 many of the subjects have been introduced or elucidated by the 

 remai^ks of some of our junior members. This is as it should 

 be. The younger the better and more welcome. The least 

 experienced, if he will make use of the powers of observation 

 with which Nature has endowed him, is sure to see something 

 which is new to the oldest among us. There is a fair field and 

 no favour. Those who have learnt the most are the most ready 

 to learn, and glad to extend the right hand of encouragement to 

 every fresh worker in the field. 



The volume of Transactions for 1879 extends to three 

 hundred and fifty pages, and (to say nothing of several papers 

 printed at length in the Proceedings) it contains twenty-five 

 memoirs, illustrated by eleven plates and as many woodcuts. 

 The authors are sixteen in number : Messrs. Butler and Charles 

 Waterhouse, four papers each ; Messrs. Baly, Distant, and West- 

 wood, two papers each ; Miss Ormerod and Messrs. F. Bates, 

 Cameron, Moore, Fritz Miiller, Oberthiir, Rutherfurd, Sharp, 

 Trimen, Buchanan White, and W^ood-Mason, one paper each. 

 Nine of the memoirs relate to Coleoptera, seven to Lepidoptera, 

 three to Hemiptera, one each to Hjanenoptera, Trichoptera, and 

 Diptera, leaving three that do not relate to any one Order in 

 particular. Twenty-two out of the twenty-five are on Exotic, 

 three only on British Entomology. M. Oberthiir's paper is 

 published in French ; and communication with South Africa 

 is now so rapid that Mr. Trimen's paper, which was read at our 

 last meeting on the 3rd December, was published and distributed 

 before the end of the month. For the most part the memoirs, 

 though interspersed with valuable remarks on classification, 



