( xlviii ) 



ever afterwards feel grateful to both the author and translator of 

 the ' Befruchtung der Blumen.' " 



His death, after three days' illness and at a comparatively 

 early age, has been a sad loss to his family ; and a Committee 

 has been formed, including some of the best known biologists of 

 Germany, to raise a fund the annual proceeds of which will be 

 given to his widow for life, and on her death shall form a prize 

 fund, to bear Hermann Muller's name, in connexion with the 

 Public School of Lippstadt. 



Of the eighteen authors who have written the twenty-two 

 memoirs of varied interest which constitute our annual volume 

 of ' Transactions,' I am glad to say that four are new con- 

 tributors. The papers are distributed amongst the Orders of 

 insects as follows : — nine on Coleoptera, eight on Hymenoptera, 

 four on Lepidoptera, and one on Hemiptera. Three only relate 

 to British Entomology, and all these to the Hymenoptera. The 

 splendid collections brought home by Mr. George Lewis have 

 given an impetus to the study of the insect fauna of Japan ; and 

 the papers of Messrs. Bates, Sharp, Lewis, and Gorham on the 

 Coleoptera, and of Mr. Distant on the Bhynchota, make Japanese 

 Entomology one of the leading features of our volume for 1883. 



In addition to this, the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 

 and the Journal of the Linnean Society contain nearly a score 

 of entomological papers, most of which are by members of this 

 Society, whilst our colleague Mr. P. H. Gosse has monopolised 

 a whole part of the Linnean Transactions with his memoir 

 " On the clasping-organs ancillary to generation in certain 

 groups of the Lepidoptera." The author describes and figures 

 in detail the armature of sixty-nine species of Orniihoptera and 

 Papilio ; and in a note at the end he adds, that at the time of 

 going to press he had in MS. descriptions with drawings of the 

 genitalia of fifty-six additional species belonging to the genera 

 Ornithoptera, Papilio, Teinopaljnis, Sericinus, and Leptocircus. 



" Nothing (says Mr. Gosse) unless it be the exquisite beauty 

 of the workmanship, is so astounding as the variety in form and 

 detail presented by these hidden instruments. Out of the 

 number that I have examined, I have not found any two species 

 whose apparatus is alike, or even so nearly alike that a moment's 

 observation is not sufficient to show the difference." 



