( xlix ) 



far as lies in my power as a President of this Society, I wish 

 to impress this point : we are now suflficiently advanced in 

 Entomology that we may well insist upon comparative 

 distinctions in all cases. 



I have not intended my address to be a purely scientific 

 one, as I have never found the time to dig deeply into the 

 recesses of science becaiise I have had so many other interests 

 in life. It may be said that a man may have many interests 

 and yet be a profound scientific student in his own branch 

 — pei'haps it is so— yet I have had cause in my own small 

 study of Dipterology to see the vast amount of good scientific 

 work which has been done, committed to MSS., and — lost ! 

 because the necessary funds for issuing the valuable work or 

 the business-like ability for obtaining the same have not been 

 forthcoming. I think it was Professor Huxley who said, 

 " We scientific men have no time to make money ; " that 

 might be all very well for Professor Huxley, who had at that 

 time made a world-wide fame, and for whose publications 

 publishers and scientific societies were clamouring, but I know 

 that several most laborious works of our greatest Dipter- 

 ologists have never seen the light of day because of the lack 

 of funds or patrons. I believe that an exceedingly elaborate 

 work of Professor Hermann Loew on the Amber Fauna was 

 never published, and is now naturally out of date, so that we 

 are never likely to see it. It is believed also that lost MSS. 

 and drawings of Meigen still exist (probably in the Jardin 

 des Plantes, where they may rest in peace another hundred 

 years) ; while refei-ences often occur to • Dipteres des Environs 

 de Paris,' by Macquart, and numerous specimens exist which 

 are labelled with references to it, but no one has seen the work. 



In conclusion I desire to say that the pressing changes com- 

 pulsory upon the new Century consist, (1) in drawing a much 

 sharper line between scientific and unscientific work, with the 

 full understanding that unscientific work should hold no 

 priority rank, and in fact might be altogether ignored, and it 

 may possibly and even probably be necessary to relegate a 

 large amount of work already published to the luiscientific 

 category, so that any synonymy subsequently discovered in 

 this unscientific work would sink as subordinate synonymy ; 



