THE ENTOMOLOGIST'S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 32.] SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1857. [Price Id. 
ENTOMOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITIES. 
The Regius Professor of Entomology 
has not yet been appointed. The blame 
does not rest with Lord Palmerston, for 
there is no such chair. Have we faith 
that there ever will be such a chair ? We 
have ! 
When we consider the extreme infancy 
of Entomology, — for a hundred years have 
not elapsed since Linne gave it a definite 
form by the introduction of the Binomial 
system of Nomenclature, and arranged 
the orders very much as we now have 
them, and constituted genera which now 
are almost all co-extensive with our fami- 
lies: what a master mind was his! — • 
when we consider the extreme infancy 
of Entomology, we cannot be surprised 
that it has not yet acquired a sufficient 
status at our seats of learning to be 
deemed worthy of a professional chair. 
But this is an age of progress, and events 
are rapidly following one another, which 
will bring Entomology into greater 
general repute than it has hitherto en- 
joyed. 
The publication last year of Mr. 
Wollaston’s work ‘ On the Variation of 
Species,’ was certain to operate benefi- 
cially on Entomology. Naturalists who 
knew nothing of Entomology, and cared 
less for it, found that it was made use of 
to furnish a collection of facts bearing on 
the great question common to all 
branches of Zoology, — To what extent 
do species vary? and what are the causes 
operating to produce varieties ? Hence, 
the general Naturalist rose, from the 
perusal of Mr. Wollaston’s book, with the 
conviction that the observations of Ento- 
mologists might be useful to furnish de- 
ductions capable of being extended to 
other branches of Natural History. 
The publication this year of Siebold 
‘ On a True Parthenogenesis in Moths 
and Bees’ has startled physiologists by 
the enunciation of a new law, — a law 
derived from a close scrutiny into the 
manners and habits of insects. That a 
Queen Bee who has never had her 
nuptial flight should lay eggs would 
have been nothing startling, but that 
those eggs should hatch, not exception- 
ally, but as a rule, and that those eggs 
should invariably produce drones, is one 
of the most astounding and important 
discoveries recently made in Natural 
Science. 
We all know that Natural Science is 
making great progress now at both 
Universities; and as both Geology and 
Botany are now made the subject of 
lectures we entertain no doubt that the 
day is not distant when lectures will also 
be delivered on Entomology. 
Lately, at Oxford, there has beeu 
established an “ Oxford University En- 
tomological Society,” and this alone is a 
most cheering sign for the further pro- 
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