4 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



sleeping sickness, have suggested the establishment of a 

 Research Fund for Tropical Diseases, which it is to be hoped 

 may greatly help to diminish their virulence, and more or 

 less stamp them out. 



Before going a step higher in the scale to the insects I must 

 mention a remarkably fine new stalked Crinoid (Proisocrinus 

 ruberrimus) from the Philippines, which is described as being 

 brilliant scarlet and more than 40 inches high, and also, from 

 the Antarctic seas, some species of Pycnogonida or sea-spiders, 

 having 10 legs instead of the usual complement of 8. This 

 is rendered still more extraordinary by the fact that but for 

 this variation, they are exceedingly closely allied to known 

 8 -legged groups. Many other remarkable forms have been 

 discovered amongst Antarctic invertebrates. The holding 

 of the first International Entomological Congress at Brussels 

 last August was an event in the history of Entomology, and 

 shews the important position to which that science has 

 attained since the time when people who caught butterflies 

 were looked upon as harmless lunatics ! Possibly this is 

 part'y owing to the fact that their would-be superiors have 

 discovered that they personally may benefit by their dis- 

 coveries, now that insects such as the mosquito and many 

 others have been found to be the carriers of disease germs, 

 and to have immense influence on the well-being of mankind 

 in different ways. The Board of Agriculture has recently, 

 under " The Destructive Insects and Pests Act," ordered 

 that anyone selling or planting any seed, cutting, plant, &c., 

 attacked by certain specified insects is liable to a fine of 10. 

 Amongst these are four moths, one of which has never been 

 found in this country, whilst the other three are so local or 

 uncommon that I have never, in more than 30 years' collecting 

 in many different localities, met with more than one of the 

 species, and that only in one locality, on a hawthorn hedge 

 near Cambridge. None of them have ever to my knowledge 

 been known to be common enough to do the slightest damage 

 in Great Britain, whatever they may be in other lands more 

 suited to their development. I am not personally so familiar 



