( cxxxix ) 



representing nineteen countries. This fact alone demonstrates 

 that the desirability for the protection of nature is being 

 realised. 



I will now attempt to lay before the Fellows of the 

 Entomological Society of London some aspects of the pre- 

 servation of nature as they apply especially to entomology. 

 It is impossible to separate entirely entomology from its 

 sister science botany. If there were no plants, there would 

 be no lepidoptera, and therefore in reviewing the problems 

 of the preservation of the fauna and flora of any country, 

 and in all countries, plants and insects must to some 

 extent be regarded together. An ideal system of nature 

 reserves would be one which embraced adequate reserves 

 all over the globe, and if a scheme was to be thought out 

 for protecting nature in the British Islands, a narrow view 

 should be avoided. We ought to " think imperially," as 

 Mr. Chamberlain once said, and such reserves should be 

 selected as represent types of vegetation which either do not 

 exist on the Continent of Europe, or which are not, at the 

 present day, so well represented there. If this course were 

 followed in every country of Europe, a series of reserves would 

 be created and maintained illustrating the fauna and flora 

 of Europe as it exists to-day. The Executive Committee 

 of the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves has been 

 engaged for some considerable time on framing schedules of 

 areas in the British Islands, which, in their opinion, would, 

 if properly preserved, exhibit the characteristic types of wild 

 country which still obtain. If we consider what species have 

 disappeared in the British Islands to the greatest extent, 

 we may be able to judge what types are likely to disappear 

 in the future most rapidly. Unquestionably, at all events 

 among lepidoptera, and probably in most orders of insects, 

 it is the fen and marsh species which have disappeared from 

 the British Islands in recent times. Had Whittlesea Mere 

 been made into a nature reserve in the early 'forties, we should, 

 without question, have had the moths Loelia coenosa and 

 Agrotis suhrosea still among us. The plants which have 

 become extinct in this country are also for the most part 

 species frequenting marshy localities. The Great Marsh 



