( xlviii ) 
THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
Gentlemen, 
Having for more than twenty years been connected 
with the Entomological Society of London, I cannot allow 
this first year of my occupancy of the Presidential chair to 
come to a termination without recalling with feelings of 
satisfaction the greatly improved conditions under which 
the Society exists now as compared with that transitional 
state which existed when I first joined, or that still earlier 
period when the head-quarters were in small and in- 
convenient premises in Bedford Eow. My own personal 
recollections do not carry me as far back as this last period, 
although there must be many among us who took part in 
those meetings. Our library, which has now reached a state 
of development at which we may justly feel proud, was at the 
time when I joined the surviving evidence of the Society's 
occupancy of the Bedford Eow apartments. Those who now 
obtain such ready access to its well-filled shelves here can 
hardly realize the disadvantages under which we laboured 
at that period. Most particularly, therefore, am I sensible of 
the honour which you have conferred upon me in electing 
me as your President at the time of our present prosperity 
and at a period of my own career when I feel that I can, 
unfortunately, no longer claim to take place among the active 
workers in entomology. The numerous and pressing de- 
mands upon my time, necessitated by other duties and by 
work in another field of science, have left me of late years in 
the position of a spectator rather than a performer. The 
