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Entomology and the British Museum. 

 The cliair having been vacated by the President, and taken by Mr. Pascoe, V.P. : 

 Professor Westwood rose to call the attention of the Meeting to the threatened 

 appointment of a successor to Mr. Adam White at the British Museum. After referrino- 

 to the circumstances under which the vacancy at the Museum had arisen, and the 

 large additions to the entomological collections which had recently been made; the 

 Professor insisted that a good staff of practical entomologists was requisite to keep the 

 collections in proper order and continue the work of classification which had been so 

 successfully begun. The two entomologists upon whom this task had devolved were 

 Mr. Frederick Smith and Mr. Adam White: the latter was removed, so that Mr. 

 Smith remained alone. To fill the post vacated by Mr. White there were numerous 

 candidates, including several good working entomologists who were in every respect 

 eligible. It would naturally be supposed that some one of these competent persons 

 would have been selected to supply Mr. White's place and carry on his work, but so 

 far from this natural supposition being likely to prove correct, the facts were, that 

 during the ill-health and consequent absence for several ^months of the Principal 

 Librarian, an officer whose sway did not appear to be limited to the Library, but to 

 extend over all the departments of the Museum, no appointment at all was made, and 

 now that that functionary had returned there had been nominated (though fortunately 

 not yet appointed) to the vacancy a gentleman whose previous employment had been 

 that of a transcriber in the Book Department, who was entirely ignorant of Entomo- 

 logy, and did not know a butterfly from a moth or a beetle from a bug. Professor 

 Westwood thought this was a matter which concerned the Society, and he asked its 

 aid to assist in preventing, if possible, so injudicious a nomination from being perfected 

 into an appointment. After a commendatory allusion to the temporary resignation of 

 the chair by the President, lest his personal interest in the question and his position 

 at the Museum might seem in any way to have been made to influence or interfere with 

 the independent judgment of the Meeting, the Professor concluded by proposing the 

 following Resolution : — 



" Considering the state of the Entomological Collection in the British Museum, 

 and the vast accessions, still unarranged, which it has recently received, and which 

 render it the most valuable collection in the world : considering, also, that the proper 

 classification of that collection requires the services of more than one person skilled in 

 the Science of Entomology — 



" Eesolved, that the nomination, in the place of Mr. Adam White, of a gentleman 

 previously employed as a transcriber in the Printed Book Department of the Museum, 

 and entirely unknown as an entomologist, cannot but prove a great detriment to the 

 progress of the classification of the collection, and is virtually a waste of the public 

 money. Such nomination is the more objectionable as several competent entomolo- 

 gists were candidates for the post." 



The Kesolution was seconded by Mr. Stainton ; and after much consideration and 

 a long conversation, in which Professor Westwood, Dr. Baly, Mr. A. E. Wallace and 

 others took part, the same was put to the meeting and was carried nem. con. 



Professor Westwood moved " That a copy of the above Eesolution be sent to the 



