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families of British Diptera, the Taehinidee and Anthomyidee, 

 into shape and order. 



Gentlemen, I must utter a strong protest against the Presi- 

 dential Addresses for many years past. Surely a Presidential 

 Address should be simply a review of what has taken place in 

 the past year or series of years, firstly with regard to this 

 Society, and secondly with regard to the Entomological world 

 in general. Naturally deductions may be drawn from what 

 has taken place, and elaborations may be expended on even 

 that, but in my opinion there should be nothing in a Presi- 

 dential Address which should more properly appear in the 

 Transactions of the Society. I say this in the interests of the 

 Presidents as well as in the interests of the Society. With 

 the gi-eatest respect to our late Pi-esident, Mr. Rowland 

 Trimen, I would urge that his essay last year on the Seasonal 

 Dimorphism of IJhopalocera was a most excellent paper for 

 our Transactions, but was out of place in a Presidential 

 Address. I say this again in the interests of the Author 

 as well as in the interests of the Society. Mr. Trimen's 

 learned essay sank at once as a Presidential Address into 

 almost the same ephemeral category as the Annual Peport 

 of the Council, but if it had appeared in our Transactions it 

 would have possessed infinitely greater scientific weight. I 

 have noticed this for year after year. When we had such a 

 President as the late Professor Westwood, we had one who 

 could review the Entomological work of the whole world for 

 the past year, and in my opinion that was the ideal of a 

 Presidential Address, but we shall never again have an 

 Entomologist with the universal grasp over the whole world 

 of Entomology which Professor Westwood possessed. We 

 are all now Specialists. 



I have therefore determined to simply put a few points 

 before you this evening, which may cause us to realise a little 

 what Entomology is at the close of this nineteenth century, 

 as compared with what it was at its commencement, and to 

 call attention to some of the advantages which we now 

 possess as against the disadvantages at the commencement of 

 the century, as well as to call attention to some of the dis- 



