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THE COMING OF AGE OF
amount of work to be done with respect to our Insect Fauna.
Mr. Fitch's admirable paper on the "Galls of Essex" read in
1881 (Trans. II., 98), and supplemented in 1887 by a paper on
two new Essex gall-makers (Essex Naturalist, I., 177) fur-
nishes us with an excellent example of a monograph on a most
interesting group of insects, and when Mr. E. J. Lewis's paper
on the "Oak Galls and Gall Insects of Epping Forest" (Essex
Naturalist, XII., 41) is published we may congratulate our-
selves on having been the means of giving to naturalists a very
substantial body of authentic observations. The Lepidoptera,
always a favourite order with collectors, have formed the subject
of several communications of which the first was Mr. Gilbert
Raynor's paper in 1882 on "The Macro-Lepidoptera of the
District around Maldon" (Trans. III., 30). In 1889 the late
Mr. Howard Vaughan gave us his "Notes on the Lepidoptera
of Leigh and its neighbourhood" (Essex Naturalist, III., 123).
No general list of the Lepidoptera of the County has as yet been
compiled, although the first instalment, the list of butterflies, was
prepared and published by Mr. Fitch in 1890 (Essex Natural-
ist, V., 74) and in the same year I published a list of the species
taken at Leyton and in the neighbourhood (Ibid., 153 and
supplementary records, VIII., 128). The materials for a com-
plete list are in existence, and it is to be hoped that Mr. Fitch
will be induced to complete the work which he has commenced
so well. A preliminary list of the Arachnida of Epping Forest
was contributed in 1883 by the Rev. O. Pickard-Cambridge
(Trans. IV., 41) and a further contribution by Mr. F. O. Pickard-
Cambridge in 1900 (Essex Naturalist, XL, 315).
Natural history observations of value are incorporated with
much of the faunistic work above referred to. The preparation
of lists of species is undoubtedly an important and necessary
part of the work of a local society—especially during the early
period of its existence. No less- important is the observation of
life-histories, habits, and the general relations between the living
organism and its environment known under the comprehensive
designation of Bionomics. Many notes and papers on Bionomics
and on general natural history appear in our volumes although,
as might be expected, such communications are few as compared
with the purely faunistic papers. As coming under this heading
I may refer to Mr. Fitch's paper on the Bean Beetle, Bruchus