FOKEWOllD. 



.smaller in comparison with the vast numbers of species as yet uncaptured. 

 Dr. kSharp in 1895 calculated that there were a quarter of a million known 

 and described insects, this was an increase of 30,000 over Glinther's figures 

 •of fifteen years before, but he states that in his opinion this quarter of a 

 million is but one-tenth of those which exist. 



Without attaching too much importance to the accuracy of these calcula- 

 tions, it is evident ihat the amount of material which is at the disposal of the 

 Entomologists of the world is almost overwhelming, and at present the workers 

 lit all the Museums in the world are not able to cope with it. 



Thus, when it seemed possible to do something to work out the Insects ol 

 tropical and subtropical Africa, it became necessary to attempt to establish 

 some new organisation, and in this view the Committee were strengthened by 

 the consideration that;, if the insects collected were incorporated in the great 

 National Collections, they would quite rightly be arranged in their proper 

 systematic position and not kept apart as African, in which case they would 

 gain in their attributes of affinity but lose in their character as African. 



It thus seemed wise to establish a separate organisation which would 

 undertake to collect and name the collections ; but the work of the Committee 

 will be in no way confined to this. It is, as outlined above, intended to send 

 out two competent entomologists, one to Eastern and the other to Western 

 Tropical Africa, and the Committee has been fortunate in securing the 

 services of two well-known and experienced entomologists, Mr. S. A. Neave 

 and Mr. J. J. Simpson. By the time these lines are in print these gentlemen 

 will have already left England, the former having gone to Nyasaland, the 

 latter to Nigeria. These gentlemen will not only collect but will endeavour 

 to interest and instruct such residents in Africa as may feel an interest in 

 Entomology. Observations on the bionomics of Insects and Ticks, the 

 noxious or beneficent action of their methods of feeding, the course their 

 life-history follows, are all obviously matters of the very highest importance ; 

 and these observations can only, as a rule, be completely followed out by 

 those who can observe all the year rounds during spring, summer, autumn 

 and winter. Although such enquiries may be stimulated and initiated by the 

 Entomologists w^ho are being sent out, they must necessarily be travelling 

 about, and it is to the resident that we must look in the main for working- 

 out life-histories. 



The chief Protozoan diseases conveyed from one animal to another are, as is 

 said above, carried by Insects and Ticks. I have for a long time sought for 

 some feature common to the Ixodid^e and the Insecta, and to these groups 

 alone, which Avould help one to coin a word that would denote insects and 

 ticks, and them alone. I have so far not succeeded. Of course both are 

 Arthropods, but the term Arthropods includes an innumerable variety and 

 a vast mass o£ living matter. Probably seven-eighths of the living proto- 

 plasm at the present time on the surface of the world is wrapped up in the 



