( Ixxix ) 



the subject having been less generally studied ; but as regards 

 the number of species, general Zoology, even with this 

 addition, reaches only about one-seventh of the total reached 

 in Entomology. It must be remembered that this work deals 

 with terrestrial Zoology and Botany only. 



We have in these figures abundant evidence that the whole 

 field of zoological research apart from Entomology is but 

 small as compared to that in which the Fellows of this 

 Society are interested, and when we see that in Central 

 America one small family of the Coleoptera, the HispidcB, 

 exceed the whole of the Mammalia, and moreover that 

 in another small family, the Cistelida, among 150 species 

 as worked out by Mr. Champion, no less than 143 are new to 

 science, we may well ask ourselves who can venture to assume 

 the appellation of " Entomologist " ? or even of Lepidopterist or 

 Hymenopterist. As in political life we are gradually becoming 

 accustomed to speak of the Honble. Member for East St. 

 Panoras, or of the South- Western Division of the East Kiding 

 of Yorkshire, surely our successors in this Society must one 

 day be content to be called Pieridists, Gelechidists, Hispidists, 

 or Cicindelidists, according to their different branches of 

 study. 



Now it is obvious from these, and from the figures I have 

 quoted from the ' Zoological Kecord,' that as compared with 

 general zoologists, entomological students have before them 

 the burden and heat of the day. If we are ever to arrive at 

 a reasonably complete idea of the sequence of genera and 

 species in the world of insects, we have to do far more than 

 has ever been done or will ever have to be done by other 

 zoologists. If we take Dr. Sharp's estimate of 2,000,000 for 

 the total number of insects on the face of the globe, — and 

 I venture to think that the time may come when that 

 estimate, already the double of any previous conjecture, 

 may be yet increased by further investigation and more 

 perfect knowledge of the minute forms in each order, — 

 we have the number of distinctly recognisable species of 

 insects reaching twenty times that of all other vertebrate and 

 invertebrate living creatures at present known, and to which 

 the additions can never approach those which have yet to be 



PROG ENT. SOC, LOND., V., 1889. M 



