( xcvi ) 



friend. We are fortunate in secui-ing as his successor one 

 who has aheady acted as Secretary, and knows full well the 

 difficulties and responsibilities as well as the keen interest and 

 the honour that belong to the position. To his many other 

 qualifications Commander Walker adds this supreme qualifi- 

 cation. The Society has never had an officer with a wider 

 experience of Entomology, or one who, from his capacious and 

 varied store — material and mental — has more freely extended 

 help and sympathy to his brother Fellows. 



Amid these changes we remember with especial gratification 

 that the tried and trusted services of our Librarian, Mr. G. C. 

 Champion, and of Mr, H. Eowland-Brown, who now becomes 

 Senior Secretary, are still to be employed for the benefit of 

 the Society. 



Robert McLachlan, F.R.S. — No moi-e pathetic event has 

 happened, in our history of well nigh three-quarters of a 

 century, than the death of a chief officer, in the midst of the 

 work which he loved, — work which, in spite of the weakness 

 and anxiety induced by ill-health, always commanded his 

 devotion and energy. 



So full of zeal was our late Treasurer for the welfare of the 

 Society, that there is reason to fear that the inability to 

 perform the important duties of his responsible post was a 

 bitter disappointment added to the inevitable troubles of 

 illness. It is some satisfaction to know that the Council took 

 every possible step to allay that anxiety, and to feel that their 

 action was attended by some measure of success. 



In the " Chapter of an Autobiography," which forms the 

 concluding part of McLachlan's second presidential address to 

 this Society * we gain veiy clear knowledge of the early age 

 at which he showed himself pre-eminently fitted to be a 

 student of Nature. This is probably always true of those who 

 are to achieve high distinction in this great school of learning. 

 We may give opportunity generously, and be the richer for 

 the free growth of genius under the most favourable con- 

 ditions: we may refuse opportunity and receive as our due 

 deserts a power which makes for good cramped and stunted. 

 But under any circumstances the power itself is from within. 

 * Proc. Eiit. Soc. Loud. 1886, p. Ixxxi. 



