41 
facts brought to our knowledge in this room is continually on the 
increase, yet I grieve to think, that, in a Society like ours, so much 
really scientific information is buried in oblivion. Year by year, I 
have slowly been coming to the conclusion that the scrappy reports of 
this and kindred societies, as published in the magazines, are practically 
useless, and, at least in the case of one of the monthlies, shut out a 
considerable amount of more solid matter, a surplusage of which is 
always on hand. The remarks and observations of some twenty field 
naturalists (a number below our average attendance), should, it 
seems to me, make at the end of the year a grand total of scientific 
entomology, that should be useful to every entomologist in the 
country. That is, we have reached that point, when we should be 
able to publish a volume of scientific material at the end of each year, 
and that this could be done, I have no doubt, if a genuine co-operation 
existed between the speakers and the reporters. One is somewhat 
astonished to find that, a meeting which has occupied rather more 
than two hours, can be condensed into a report that may be read in 
five minutes or less. This is as it should be for the minutes of the 
Society, but, at the same time, I have, in my own mind, no doubt 
whatever, that a full and complete report of each speaker’s remarks, 
whether in direct connection with an exhibit or a discussion thereon, 
should be taken at each meeting. Our Secretaries complain, and very 
justly, that members do not give them notes ; members say that what 
they say is often not particularly important, and is scarcely worth 
reporting at length. Surely our Secretaries can be trusted to separate 
the wheat from the chaff. These two views crop up at all the Societies 
that I attend, yet, in the long run, one finds that, by hook or by crook, 
a very fair summary of one’s remarks is published in the Proceedings 
of the various Societies. 
I do not wish it to be thought that I am trying to reach the un¬ 
attainable. This is not so. In my position as an official of what I 
suppose may be called the three leading entomological societies in 
London, I see a great deal of the work that is done. I have repeatedly 
stated, and I maintain as a fact, that, in this room, we often cover 
more ground scientifically than do the members of either of the other 
Societies. Yet our Transactions bear no comparison with either. I say 
this with regret, because a society like ours is capable of better things. 
Our Secretaries, I presume, think that longer reports will not be 
printed, and that, therefore, it is useless to write them. This is true 
of the magazines, but, on the other hand, I think their line should be to 
take a good model, and then say—now, we do as much scientific work 
at one of our ordinary meetings as do the members of that society 
(whose Transactions we have taken as our model) ; we will show, by 
our reports at the end of the year, that we have collected a vast 
amount of scientific matter that ought to be published, and we will go to 
the Society at our next annual meeting and insist on the Society 
finding the money to publish the scientific matter in our hands. This 
is my view of the matter. If the members of this Society know that 
they are paying for something that they could not get in any other 
way, and for something for which each one, more or less, was re¬ 
sponsible for the authorship, I venture to think that each would 
cheerfully help towards defraying that portion of the expense, which 
the funds of the Society could not meet. To carry this out, two things 
