2 PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 



through residence abroad was unable often to be present at 

 our meetings. Colonel Storer, elected in 1900, Mrs. A. T. 

 Brinsley Sheridan (1903), Mr. Theo, Michell (1907), Lieut. - 

 Colonel W. H. Baxter (1910), and Mr. Aubrey Edwards (1913), 

 all attended our Meetings occasionally, and a paper by the 

 last-named is printed in Vol. XXXV. of our Proceedings. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Though we are very fortunate in this country in being 

 practically free from the insect bearers of disease germs 

 which are found in so many parts of the world, especially 

 warm climates, it has lately been estimated that no less than 

 226 different disease organisms are carried by various insects 

 either to man or animals. Sleeping sickness, which is con- 

 veyed by the tsetse fly, has been greatly diminished in French 

 and Belgian Congoland, but is unfortunately spreading in 

 Nyasaland and North Rhodesia. It seems proved that the 

 trypanosomes are spread amongst animals by Tabanidae 

 and other biting flies in areas free from the tsetse. The 

 malaria -carrying mosquito, Anopheles maculipennis, has been 

 found to be capable of carrying malaria in France, though 

 I am not aware that cases of that disease of local origin have 

 ever occurred either there or in this country, where the insect 

 is also found sparingly. Government investigations are now 

 being made as to its distribution in view of possible future 

 danger from this source, which seems to be improbable, 

 though of course possible. A useful illustrated pamphlet on 

 this and other species of disease -bear ing mosquitoes is 

 published by the British Museum of Natural History. 

 The wonderful immunity of our .troops from jyphoid and 

 other similar diseases during the present war, compared with 

 former wars, is the best testimony to the strides which 

 bacteriological science has made of late years. Had it not been 

 for this our losses would have been far greater. In the early 

 days of natural history there was a tendency to regard 

 any specimens that differed from the type as distinct species. 



