AN ADDRESS TO THE MEMBERS 



^oiitli 3ioiidou (Bnioinolocjiciil and Uaturiil It.'itori) 



TT has been the custom of my predecessors in this chair to 

 ^ bring their year of office to a close by addressing to you 

 a few words on the subject we have so much at heart. I do 

 not propose to break through so excellent a time-honoured 

 custom, and if I am unable to reach the high level set in 

 some previous Presidential Addresses, at any rate I trust I 

 may be able to interest you in a subject that has occupied 

 the attention of some of the greatest intellects of this 

 century — a subject that will make the nineteenth century 

 famous in the annals of science, that has opened up to us 

 new intellectual enjoyments, that has peopled with living 

 beings the dark ages of the past, and that has led us to have 

 a clearer conception of the organic beings around us, not 

 even excepting man himself. 



I may premise, however, by referring to the fact that we 

 are, in name at least, a Natural History Society, in practice 

 we are essentially an Entomological Society ; and when one 

 looks through the now extensive list of past Presidents one 

 is struck with the fact that with scarcely an exception each 

 has been essentially an entomologist, and we know that 

 however interested they may have been in natural history 

 generally, their serious work has been devoted to the study 

 of insects, and to these almost alone. If I follow in their 

 footsteps and base my remarks more particularly on insects, 

 it will be for the same reason that I am an entomologist 

 first, and a general naturalist only by the courtesy of those 

 who do not expect too much from those so called. 



In spite of this I should like to make a few remarks on 

 the study of natural history, and the intellectual pleasure 

 to be derived therefrom. Huxley once said : " The value 

 of any pursuit depends upon the extent to which it fulfils 



