57 



are concerned. I am aware that preparations were made 

 for this worlv some years since, but that little was done in 

 the matter. Whether insurmountable difficulties were found 

 I cannot say, but, with small committees working in the 

 several branches, it does not appear to me that the work 

 would be burdensome, while of its utility surely there can be 

 no doubt. 



Looked at entomologically the last year of the nineteenth 

 century was no doubt a somewhat abnormal one. Following 

 a mild winter came a late ungenial spring, and the earlier 

 insects were in many cases (perhaps not always, however) 

 behind their time. Then came the tropical weather of July, 

 and the reverse was the case. Though the first part of 

 x\ugust was wet and cool, the weather in the latter part of 

 the summer and the autumn was on the whole good, and the 

 season was late in closing. Perhaps the most noticeable 

 feature was the immigration of various insects from the 

 Continent, of which we have not only the circumstantial 

 evidence derived from their presence here, but in some cases 

 the direct evidence of those who saw them arrive. To one 

 or two of these insects I shall refer in a moment, for though 

 the President's address scarcely seems the place for it, I 

 think I must follow the usual custom and say something of 

 what is new or most noticeable during the year, at any rate 

 as regards the insects in Britain. I shall touch on this 

 matter very lightly, but cannot pass it by entirel}^, seeing 

 that so much of the work is due to members of this Society, 

 as indeed has been the case in the past. 



Amongst the Coleoptera five species seem to have been 

 added to the British list — Orochares angustatus, Trogophlceus 

 anglicanus, Dinodenis niinutus, D. pilifrons, and Anthonomus 

 rufus, though the last alone seems to be a genuinely new 

 British beetle. Others have been reinstated, or have had 

 their position on the list more clearly established. To Mr. J. J. 

 Walker we owe a paper on the " Formation of a Collection 

 of Coleoptera," and a"List of the Coleoptera of the Rochester 

 District." 



In connection with the Diptera the event of the year is the 

 publication of the first volume of Mr. G. H. Verrall's 

 " British Diptera," It is a bulky tome, well got up, and 

 containing a large number of illustrations. When the fourteen 

 volumes are completed it will no longer be just to complain 

 that this order of insects has been inadequately treated in 

 Britain. Another contribution to the Diptera literature is 

 the " Life-history of the Harlequin fly," by Miall and 



