IV INTRODUCTION. 



jects might be received and read ; expei'iments for the de- 

 gtruction of noxious insects, and improvements in the do- 

 mestication of those useful to man suggested ; oral commu- 

 nications made, and new objects exhibited ; and of forming a 

 collection of insects, and a library of reference for the use of 

 the Members. How far they have succeeded in their object 

 will be best seen by the List of the Society, in which are 

 included the names of many of the most distinguished natu- 

 ralists of the present day, with that of the venerable Father 

 of British Entomology at their head. 



This is not the place to discuss the merits of the several 

 communications now laid before the world, but we may be 

 allowed to say, that a volume which can boast of so much 

 original and interesting matter as, we fearlessly assert, will be 

 found in the present, could hardly require any reasons to be 

 assigned in vindication of its appearance, had not one of the 

 most distinguished of our Members, after bearing honour- 

 able testimony to the utility of the Society, and ' the radi- 

 cal healthiness of its constitution,' expressed, both in his re- 

 cently published '^Preliminary Discourse' and elsewhere, his 

 dissent from the policy of publishing Transactions 'at our 

 own charges ' at all, considering that a Council ' so imwise 

 as to plunge the Society into that expense' must 'either in- 

 volve it in debt, or render it necessary to increase the sub- 

 scription.' That the dignity of a scientific body is best con- 

 sulted by publishing its memoirs in a separate volume devoted 

 solely to the Transactions of the Society, and bearing its 

 name, can hardly be questioned 5 and a Society which does 

 not consult its own dignity must not look to have it very 

 highly appreciated by the world. We mean no disrespect to 

 any of the scientific journals of the present day ; they are all 

 more or less useful, and some of them eminently so, and ex- 

 cellent papers not unfrequently find their way into their pages ; 

 but so also do, occasionally, communications of a very dif- 

 ferent character. But it may be asked, can sterling merit be 

 degraded by association with baser matter ? Certainly not : 

 the world, however, is apt to lay no small stress on asso- 

 ciations ; in short, the noscitur a socio is applicable to me- 



