1 
helping liand to the smaller Societies, like our own, which have 
been doing good work in Science, although often struggling for 
existence. This has not been done ; and after the present 
season — during which the Linnean Society has been kind enough 
to continue to allow us to meet (as for several years past) in their 
rooms in Burlington House — it will be necessary for us to provide 
ourselves with a new meeting-room, and which it may jprobably 
be considered desirable to have, in connexion with our library, in 
Bedford Row, where it has so long been, or elsewhere if 
necessary. 
I cannot leave this chair without offering a few words of advice 
to the younger members of our Society. Entomology is a 
Science, not a pastime. The objects- of our studies are not play- 
things ; they are amongst the most elaborate of the works of an 
Almighty Designer, — " The hand that made them is divine." As 
such they are worthy of our most careful study and research, 
which are capable of far wider extension than might at first sight 
be imagined. To study insects properly it is necessary that the 
STRUCTURE of the object under notice should be thoroughly', not 
superficially, examined, not only externall}', but internally. Its 
HABITS also should be carefully studied, especially with reference 
to the corresponding peculiarities which may be noticed in its 
organization ; the various changes it undergoes, from its earliest 
appearance in the embrj^onic state, through its various trans- 
formations ; its relations to other existing species ; whether 
those close structural resemblances which have been termed 
AFFINITIES, or tliosc wider or more general relations or points of 
resemblance which have been termed analogies, and to some 
of which the ill-chosen name of mimicrj'^ has more recently been 
applied ; the ECONOMicAii uses of the species, whether bene- 
ficial or obnoxious to man or other objects; the sexual dis- 
tinctions, more especially the amount of variation in the external 
secondary sexual characters, such as difference of size, colour, 
texture, or appendages ; the amount of variation observable in 
the individuals of which the species are composed, especially 
with the view of determining how far these variations are 
hereditary, constituting more or less distinct local races; the 
GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE of the individuals of which the species con- 
sist, that is, the distribution of each in space ; the relationship 
of the species with extinct individuals, either of the same or 
