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removal must necessarily be a considerable item. But yet T feel con- 

 vinced that if a suitable locality could be found with a meeting room 

 at least twice as large as this, the Society would soon derive the benefit 

 from the increase in its Members, more than sufficient to repay the 

 expenses of removal. I say a room at least twice as large as this, 

 because if we are to move, I think we ought to take a lesson from the 

 case-making larvae of the genus Coleophora, and these larvae when 

 they find their case too small and have to construct a new one, make 

 it more than twice the size of the old one, so that it may at least last 

 for a considerable time ; these larvae do not like to be always making 

 cases, and we, as a Society, do not wish to be always moving. 



During the past year we have added fifteen gentlemen to our ranks, 

 ten of whom have been elected Members and five Subscribers. In 

 the same period we have lost fourteen — three Members by death, and 

 five Members and six Subscribers have resigned. It will thus be 

 observed we have now two Members more than last year, and one 

 Subscriber less; this is clearly a gain on the side of the Society. 



Amongst our losses the latest, but not the least, is that of our highly 

 esteemed Honorary Member, Mr. Spence. The name of Spence is 

 so indissolubly connected with Entomology, and the Science has 

 benefited so largely by his labours, that we owe no common debt of 

 gratitude to his memory. William Spence was born in 1783, and in 

 the early part of his life he resided at Hull. When about ten years of 

 age he imbibed a slight taste for Botany, from being then under the 

 charge of a clergyman who had himself a fondness for that study, and, 

 to use Mr. Spence's own account of the circumstance,* " I was led from 

 mere boyish imitation to collect and dry plants and to copy out the 

 names of the Linnean classes and orders. This was the sole extent of 

 my then botanical acquirements, which were wholly interrupted by 

 going to another school ; and for the seven or eight subsequent years I 

 never looked at a plant. But the germ was there, and old associations 

 having led me to purchase at a book-sale a copy of the Lichfield 

 translation of the ' Systema Vegetabilium,' with a preliminary explan- 

 ation of botanical terms, I was induced first to study these and then 

 other introductions to the Science, till Botany became an object of my 

 ardent pursuit, and was followed (as in Mr. Kirby's case) by Ento- 

 mology, when the plants in the neighbourhood of my residence were 

 exhausted." 



* Address delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Entomological Society of 

 Loudon, January 22, 1849, by William Spence, F.R.S., President. 



