Ixxvii 



universities no longer ignore it ; the applicability of entomology 

 to useful purposes is becoming more generally known ; and it 

 must be our aim, whilst retaining and cherishing the true 

 scientific spirit, and taking care that our pursuit becomes more 

 and more philosophic, at the same time to ai)ply our enquiries 

 and our facts to purposes of utility and public interest. Do we 

 not ride our own special hobby-horses a little too hard, and so 

 deter those who are not specialists from joining us ? Could we 

 not attract a wider support if our energies were more directed to 

 purposes of general interest ? Could we not organize a series of 

 periodical reports on injurious insects, and so secure the adhesion 

 of agriculturists and horticulturists ? Can we not obtain for our 

 Transactions more papers of an anatomical or philosophic 

 character, more papers on classification or distribution, on the 

 morphology and development of insects, on the light thrown by 

 entomolog}' on the problems of general biology ? Papers like 

 these would be readable by naturalists who are not specially 

 entomologists. We want more observational work, and less 

 description of species ; and I am very much afraid that so long 

 as our Transactions are almost monopolized by descriptive 

 entomology, until we can obtain a larger proportion of papers 

 of more general interest, it will be hopeless to expect an}' con- 

 siderable addition to our muster-roll. 



" The habits, manners, and instincts of insects, their anatomy and 

 physiology, and their useful or noxious properties, will doubtless attract a 

 large share of the attention of the members of the Entomological Society, 

 without inducing them to underrate the importance of the systematic 

 department of the science. Knowledge as to the structure, habits, and 

 economy of insects ought to be the grand and ultimate aim of entomologists; 

 but this knowledge can be neither acquired nor dift\ised without systematic 

 classification, which is the dictionary that must enable us duly to read the 

 great book of Nature, and to whifh therefore, so long as that dictionary still 

 remains so incomplete, even the largest portion of the entomologist's labours 

 may be justly given, while at the same time no fact, however trilling, 

 relating to the habits and economy of the objects of his study is suffered to 

 be lost, the two great branches of the science, system and the natural 

 history of insects (taken in its largest sense) being made to go hand in 

 hand, and mutually to support each other." 



Thus wrote the veteran Wm. Spence in 1831 (Tr. Ent. 

 Soc.i. 1). And in his first Address on the Progress and State of 



