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successful year of office. He knew that Mr. Main accepted 

 the position with considerable misgiving, but the success of 

 his presidency had fully justified the insistence of his friends 

 that he should accept it. He also wished to congratulate 

 the Society in having persuaded Mr. Adkin to again resume 

 the presidential chair. The laws of courtesy forbade any 

 discussion of the Presidential Address, and he was afraid 

 that if he indulged in retrospect it would be considered a 

 sign of growing age and infirmity. However, he could not 

 forget that, twenty years since, when he joined the Society, 

 Mr. Adkin was then its President, and during the years that 

 had passed away one knew of the excellent work that 

 Mr. Adkin had done for the Society. Another memory that 

 forced itself upon him was that when he took charge of his 

 first school — now twenty-eight years ago — one of the names 

 still on the register was that of their ex-President, Mr. Hugh 

 Main, who had been criticising his early work so freely that 

 evening. This was, of course, very dreadful, but he thought 

 he had an answer to most of the points raised. Mr. Main 

 had asked in his address why each one of us individually was 

 an entomologist, and had made a suggestion there anent. 

 He (the speaker) supposed the cause was usually different in 

 every case. For himself, he began collecting butterflies (he 

 knew not why, probably because of their beauty) as far back 

 as 1870, when he was about twelve years of age, but his 

 active enthusiasm was the result of seeing two or three cases 

 made by a youngster only three or four years older than 

 himself, and from that day to this the love of the hunter 

 had been strong within him. But this was not all : collecting 

 had to satisfy mental conditions as well as the hunting in- 

 stincts, to respond to one's temperament, if the pursuit was 

 to last and if something better than mere hunting was to 

 grow out of it, whilst behind it all was the desire 



" To wander away and away 



With Nature, the dear old nurse, 

 Who sings to us night and day 

 The songs of the universe. 



" And whenever the way seems long, 

 And the heart begins to fail, 

 She sings a more wonderful song 

 Or tells a more marvellous tale." 



It was just the temperament that did everything, and 

 differently as we viewed the possibilities of our pursuit, there 

 was no doubt that the love of the wood and fields was at 



