24 
in their power to induce their friends to join us. I have pointed out 
in previous addresses that we occupy a unique position in two or three 
respects, particularly in the strength of our annual publication relatively 
to the want of numerical strength in our membership-roll, but also 
in the kind of specializing to which we seem to be more and more 
tending, as primarily a lepidopterists’ society. But it is quite 
manifest that such a position cannot be maintained without a certain 
strenuousness on our part, and I would again urge you to bring the 
claims of the society before the notice of all sorts and conditions of 
entomologists, but perhaps especially of lepidopterists. 
lou have been reminded by the secretaries that the excursions, 
which are so prominent and so successful a feature in some kindred 
societies, appear as a very weak point in our statistical records. I do 
not know that I need dilate on the pleasure and advantage of those 
occasions. I am quite aware that there is a feeling abroad in certain 
quarters that the success of an excursion from a purely Natural 
History point of view is almost in inverse proportion to the size of 
the attendance; but I think this was disproved, as the leader (Mr. 
M . I. Cox) remarked at the time, by the most (numerically) successful 
of our recent excursions—the one to Darenth a few years ago ; and 
even if large numbers do sometimes militate against hard work, they 
ha\e very strong compensating advantages in the direction of wider 
interchange of thought and increase of general knowledge. Speaking 
as a regular attendant at them for some years past, I say with con¬ 
fidence that I have seldom (if ever) been present at one without gaining 
some new idea, or learning something new as regards localities or 
methods of field work. 
Of our more serious work as a society, as it is shown in the list of 
papers read before us during the past year, we have no reason to feel 
ashamed. It is not necessary or even desirable that I should make 
any detailed reference to them now or attempt in any way to 
recapitulate the matter brought before you in them. We are hoping 
to have in our hands early in the new year copies of our twelfth 
annual volume of “ Transactions,” and shall then be able to read 
and digest them for ourselves. If I may be allowed to single out one 
paper as worthy of especial mention, as showing the high place which 
our Transactions are taking in entomological literature, I would refer 
to Mr. Sich s excellent one on the genus Phyllocnistis, read nearly a 
twehemonth ago, but doubtless well remembered by those who 
heard it, as a really solid piece of work, whether from the point of 
view of the literary knowledge displayed or of the author’s original 
observations added thereto. I have emphasised in former addresses 
the importance of our combining these two factors in our work — an 
acquaintance with what has been done already, as made known in 
entomological literature or by correspondence and communion with 
entomologists, and an aptitude for adding to that by our own personal 
research. Need I add that our Natural History Societies, with their 
meetings and their libraries, furnish just such aid as is required for 
the former of these factors, and consequently just such stimulus as is 
required for the latter. 
The year 1902 does not seem to have been so eventful in the ento¬ 
mological world generally as some other years which 1 can remember ; 
at least, in bringing it hastily under review, I am not struck by many 
