IXTRODUCTIOX. Vll 



miinber of the Entomological Magazine for October 1834, 

 to pass unnoticed. 



We shall make no comment on the sweeping observation 

 at page 332, that all our entomologists, with only four ex- 

 ceptions, are fools, but content ourselves with thanking the 

 editors, in the name of the rest, for the compliment. The 

 assertion, however, in the next paragraph, that the Society is 

 ' going down,' requires severer animadversion. This, it seems, 

 is made on the circumstance that the meeting in September 

 ■was attended by only twelve Members, and it is repeated at 

 page 434, in the following paragraph : ' The attendance of 



* members at these sittings has greatly decreased : at the 

 ' July sitting about twenty members were present j at the 



* August sitting, about fifteen ; at the September sitting, 

 ' about twelve.' Now, whatever the editors of this journal 

 may please to insinuate, these attendances, considering the 

 time of year, cannot be called bad ; and as to their having 

 ' greatly decreased' since the opening, it would have been 

 very extraordinary if they had not, when a large proportion 

 of the Members had left London, as always happens in the 

 summer months. But look at the meetings of other societies at 

 the same period, — the Zoological, for instance, — the number 

 of members of that body who attended the scientific meetings 

 in September did not amount on either occasion to twelve, 

 although the proportion of members in the two societies 

 is nearly as twenty-five to one. Is the Zoological Society 

 also ' going down' ? 



We have already stated that the Council considered it essen- 

 tial to the credit of the Society that it should publish its own 

 Transactions, and have given the reasons for their coming to 

 that resolution. If any doubt could have been entertained of 

 their wisdom in so doing, as far as the character of the Trans- 

 actions might be affected by association, it is effectually re- 

 moved by the conduct of the editors of the Entomological 

 Magazine themselves, in having admitted that farrago of 

 nonsense which, under the title of Colloquia Entomologicay 

 stands at the head of their present number. So miserable 

 an attempt at wit, and so ridiculous a parade of learning 



