1865.] Entomology. 285 



very limited ; and on turning to the account of the treasurer, we are 

 sorry to find that the outlay for this object considerably exceeds the 

 income from the same source, and also that the amount of guinea 

 subscriptions for the year 1864 is only 101Z. 17s., there being but 

 ninety-seven members. 



This is not as it should be. We know many unimportant 

 provincial societies numbering half-a-dozen times as many members, 

 and with revenues in proportion. Surely the Entomologists (and 

 indeed the Zoologists) of Great Britain will not allow this report of 

 the state of the parent Society to be repeated. At the conclusion of 

 this brief notice, we append a circular that has just been issued by 

 the Society ; but let not our readers go away with the impression that 

 the Society can do nothing besides making appeals. The President's 

 address touches in a cursory, but interesting manner upon the progress 

 of Entomology at home and abroad. 



He refers to various articles which have appeared in Magazines and 

 Eeviews, mentioning, among others, that of the Eev. T. A. Marshall, 

 " On the Sub-family Corynodinae," in the ' Proceedings of the Linnean 

 Society ; ' of Mr. Eye, " On the Staphylinidae," in the ' Entomologists' 

 Monthly Magazine ; ' of Mr. Trimen, " On the Insect Fauna of 

 Madagascar," in the October Number of this Journal ; and Mr. 

 Murray's " Monograph of the Nitidulidee," in the ' Linnean Trans- 

 actions.' 



He informs us that the trustees of the British Museum have issued 

 "Mr. Wollaston's Catalogue of the Coleopterous Insects of the 

 Canaries," filling six hundred pages, and accurately describing 930 

 species. 



Mr. Blackwall's " History of the Spiders of Great Britain and 

 Ireland " (reviewed in the October Number of this Journal) is also 

 mentioned with commendation ; and the observations of Mr. Black- 

 wall regarding the means by which insects are enabled to adhere to 

 smooth surfaces, are summarized. This subject is by no means 

 settled by Mr. Blackwall, for there are difficulties in the way of 

 the acceptance of his " viscid fluid " theory, just as great as the 

 " vacuum " doctrine of West and others. 



The researches of foreign investigators are not forgotten, and 

 those of Baudelot on the influence of the nervous system on respiration 

 of insects ; of Claparede on the " pericardiac lacunae " of Lycosa ; of 

 Mr. Walsh, of Philadelphia, on dimorphism in Cynips, are all briefly 

 referred to. Our limited space prevents us from touching upon other 

 interesting features in the address ; but we cannot help noticing the 

 curt judgment passed upon the lucubrations of the ' Times Bee- 

 master,' with which the columns of the leading Journal were so long 

 inundated. Uninitiated readers who waded through these will be 

 astonished to hear them characterized as " rather a work of the 

 imagination than a statement of facts." 



The President complains of a want of simple catalogues or " lists 

 of the published species of families, sub-families, and orders (of 

 insects) with reference to the places where they are described, or 

 where anything valuable concerning them is to be found," and he 



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