( 2) 
friend. We are fortunate in securing as his successor one 
who has already acted as Secretary, and knows full well the 
difficulties and responsibilities as well as the keen interest and 
the honour that belong to the position. To his many other 
qualifications Commander Walker adds this supreme qualifi- 
cation. The Society has never had an officer with a wider 
experience of Entomology, or one who, from his capacious and 
varied store—material and mental—has more freely extended 
help and sympathy to his brother Fellows. 
Amid these changes we remember with especial gratification 
that the tried and trusted services of our Librarian, Mr. G. C. 
Champion, and of Mr. H. Rowland-Brown, who now becomes 
Senior Secretary, are still to be employed for the benefit of 
the Society. 
Ropert MchLacuian, F.R.S.—No more pathetic event has 
happened, in our history of well nigh three-quarters of a 
century, than the death of a chief officer, in the midst of the 
work which ke loved,—work which, in spite of the weakness 
and anxiety induced by ill-health, always commanded his 
devotion and energy. 
So full of zeal was our late Treasurer for the welfare of the 
Society, that there is reason to fear that the inability to 
perform the important duties of his responsible post was a 
bitter disappointment added to the inevitable troubles of 
illness. It is some satisfaction to know that the Council took 
every possible step to allay that anxiety, and to feel that their 
action was attended by some measure of success. 
In the “Chapter of an Autobiography,” which forms the 
concluding part of McLachlan’s second presidential address to 
this Society * we gain very clear knowledge of the early age 
at which he showed himself pre-eminently fitted to be a 
student of Nature. This is probably always true of those who 
are to achieve high distinction in this great school of learning. 
We may give opportunity generously, and be the richer for 
the free growth of genius under the most favourable con- 
ditions: we may refuse opportunity and receive as our due 
deserts a power which makes for good cramped and stunted. 
But under any circumstances the power itself is from within. 
* Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1886, p. 1xxxi. 
