liv 



The sources of income and lieads of expenditure may be briefly exhibited as 

 follows : — 



Payments. 



£ 

 Publications .... 32.'> 



Library ..... 37 



Rent and Office Expenses . . 66 

 Tea at Meetings ... 14 



£442 



The expenditure exceeds that of any other of the thirty-five years during which 

 the Society has existed. The £210 from Members includes the composition of a Life 

 Member in lieu of annual payments; the outlay of which in the permanent improve- 

 ment of the Library the Council regards as a proper applicaliou of a fund which is 

 capital rather than income. The item of £99 from the sale of Transactions has 

 already been referred to, as a cause for gratification ; but the amount ought to be still 

 further increased: will it be believed, that of all our Metropolitan Members, not a 

 dozen care to purchase (^at half-price) a copy of our works? The item for Rent and 

 Ofiice expenses, £66, has been reduced to a minimum; no further reduction iu the 

 cost of administration is possible. The £325 paid for priming and plates is exclusive 

 of the cost of drawing and engraving four plates of Longicorns, for which, as on many 

 previous occasions, we have to offer our thanks to Mr. Wilson Saunders. It is from 

 extraordinary donations '(among which the Council begs especially to call attention to 

 that of £70 from Mr. Dunning), and not from the regular income of the Society, that 

 a large portion of the expenditure on the Transactions has been defrayed — a state of 

 affairs which the Council does not affect to consider satisfactory, and which is 

 defensible only on the ground that, in the interest of Science, the curtailment of our 

 publications would be still more unsatisfactory. Adding the small balance brought 

 forward from 1867 to ihe slight excess of receipts over payments for 1868, the 

 Treasurer starts the year 1869 with cash in hand to the amount of £5 12s. Od. 



. The " List of the Insects of the British Isles " has not been forgotten ; considerable 

 progress has been made, particularly with the Hymenoptera and Neuroptera; the 

 Perlidae now form the only obstacle to the completion of the latter Order, and as 

 Mr. M'Lachlan is actively engaged in revising that Family, it is hoped that the 

 Catalogue of Neuroptera will be ready before many months have elapsed. 



It is a source of regret that many of our Entomologists should be so far wanting 

 in public spirit as to withhold their support from the body which is the representative 

 of the United Kingdom in the Parliament of the Entomological World : it is a source 

 of wonderment that so many of them who, if xlevoid of abstract love of the science, 

 might be supposed to be influenced by utilitarian arguments, should be backward in 

 joining a Society whose Members receive so full a return for their subscription. The 

 Annual Contribution is but a guinea. To the Metropolitan Members, the Library 

 and Meetings — to the Provincial Members, the Transactions — afford a really re- 

 raunerulive qiiid pro quo. For the last seven years, with an average of 150 con- 

 tributors, the average expenditure of the Society has exceeded 350 guineas. The 

 Council, in conclusion, desires to urge upon Members the desirability — not to say the 



