( xxxiii ) 



THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen, 



The Report of the Council which you have just heard 

 read by the Secretary is, T think I may say without fear of 

 contradiction, the most satisfactory that has ever been 

 presented to the Society : the number of Fellows is greater 

 than in any previous year since its foundation, and the 

 financial position of the Society was never on a sounder foot- 

 ing : this has enabled us to publish a volume of Transactions, 

 which is certainly not surpassed by those of any Ento- 

 mological Society in the world. I am sure that all will agree 

 with me that this result is largely due to the excellent 

 work of our Secretaries and Treasurer and, I should like to add 

 also, our Librarian : I sincerely hope that the question of a 

 paid Assistant Secretary, as suggested in the Report, may be 

 taken into serious consideration, for I know by experience 

 that it is a thing much to be desired. If I may say a word or 

 two with regard to the Transactions themselves, I naturally feel 

 gratified to see the Coleoptera at the head of the list of papers, 

 but I should like to endorse the regret expressed by the 

 Secretaries at the absence of any communications on Diptera, 

 Orthoptera and Neuroptera : in the former of these there 

 remains a vast amount of work to be done even with regard 

 to our British species, and if I were a beginner, I should take 

 them up in preference to any other Order. 



It used to be the custom for the President to allude to any 

 noticeable works on Entomology that had appeared during the 

 previous year : I do not know of many important ones, besides 

 Kieffer's work on the Cecidomyiidse just concluded in the 

 " French Annals," and Mr. Newstead's volume of Coccida> 

 published by the Ray Society, and I may perhaps be allowed 

 to mention the first volume of our late President's work on 



