xlix 



The most important systematic paper is Major Parry's revision 

 of the Liicanidae, which brings up our knowledge of this noble 

 family to the present time, and gives in a compendious form a list 

 of all the species now known, with their respective habitats. The 

 descriptive papers of Mr. Bates on Copridse and Longicorns ; of 

 Mr. Pascoe on Australian Curculionidse ; of Professor Westwood 

 on Pselaphidce ; of Mr. Butler, Mr. Hewitson and Mr. Trimen on 

 Butterflies ; and of Messrs. M'Lachlan and Eaton on Neuroptera, 

 will render the volume acceptable to the students of these groups 

 of insects. 



The scarcity of papers on British Entomology in our own 

 Transactions is to some extent compensated by the discussion 

 on the economy of Ehipiphorus, which has appeared in the 

 Annals and Magazine of Natural History, and still more by the 

 appearance in the Linnean Transactions of a fourth part of Sir 

 John Lubbock's " Notes on Thysanura." In this valuable series 

 of papers, the author has shown how much is yet to be done in 

 our own country by a close observer of the obscure forms of 

 insect life ; for not only are they full of original observations and 

 discoveries in the anatomy, physiology, and af&uities of the 

 insects treated of, but a large number of entirely new species 

 have been discovered and described. 



It is a satisfaction to me that the jeav of my presidentship 

 should have been signalised by the issue of the first instalment, 

 although it is but a small one, of the Society's Catalogue of 

 British Insects. The Catalogue of British Neuroptera, by 

 Mr. M'Lachlan, now published, will serve as a specimen of what 

 the work is intended to be ; and, looked at merely as a model 

 catalogue in arrangement and typography, it ought to be in the 

 hands of every naturalist. If the whole can be completed in any 

 reasonable time, and of equally good quality, it will form a work 

 of reference useful to general students as well as to entomologists, 

 and a credit to the Society Avhich has produced it. 



The Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London are this 

 year deficient in entomological matter, the only papers being, an 

 account of the Spiders of St. Helena, and a Monograph of the 

 genus Idiops, by Mr. Pickard- Cambridge ; but the Transactions 

 of the same body contain a valuable illustrated paper by our 

 member, Mr. Charles Home, on the Habits of the Hymenoptera 

 of North Western India, with descriptions of the new species by 



