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we must all admit that we have lost the greatest Naturalist and 

 most careful observer of modern times ; his works are numerous 

 and mostly known to our members. On the Continent, we have 

 to record the death of Jules Putzeys, at the age of 73 ; a most 

 prominent Coleopterist and voluminous writer almost to the 

 date of his death, and Professor C. G. A. Giebel, the successor to 

 Burmeister in the direction of the Museum at Halle ; he was a 

 noted Palaeontologist, and in 1874 he produced an enormous 

 folio work with 20 coloured plates on the Mallophaga^ or Bird 

 Lice, under the title of Insecta Epizoa. 



But let us turn for a while from these melancholy records. 

 We may, I think, fairly congratulate ourselves that the study of 

 Entomology is progressing generally. By this, I do not mean 

 Lepidoptera exclusively. That it is a large and most beautiful 

 order I freely admit, but why so large a proportion of Entomolo- 

 gists should collect and study this group alone is to me a mystery. 

 Are there not other orders equally as beautiful ? I cannot help 

 thinking so, unless indeed beauty consists in gaudy colours. It 

 must not be thought from this that I despise this particular 

 order in which so many of our great Entomologists have risen to 

 fame, but I am anxious that some of our own members should 

 take up some of the other almost despised orders, and help to 

 bring them more prominently before our own Society ; there are 

 plenty of other fields in which the energies of Entomologists 

 might find useful employment, and where, at the present time, 

 workers are sadly wanted. Take, for instance, the Hemiptera or 

 Homoptera, groups which are now receiving more attention, but 

 not what they deserve. There is amongst them variety of for- 

 mation as well as of colour, enough to please the most fastidious. 

 That there are among them small insects I admit, but scientists 

 are not concerned with size. Or take the sadly neglected order 

 of Diptera. Here is a large field with, unfortunately, but few 



