This department of the work of the Royal Gardens yearly augments both in the number of communications which we receive and the variety of the subjects with which they deal. The plan of recording in these reports some of the more generally interesting matters which are thus brought under our notice has proved very useful to our correspondents in distant countries. Large portions of the Report for last year have been reprinted in various colonial journals, and have been also translated into German. By giving this wide diffusion to carefully considered expressions of opinion, prepared in the first instance perhaps to meet a single inquiry from a Government department, a great deal of labour in replying on the same subject to successive applicants has been saved.

In matters dealing with the ravages of insects I have had to rely on the kind assistance of Mr. R. M'Lachlan, F.R.S., who has aided us with an amount of knowledge and patient research which the Government could hardly have counted upon obtaining at the hands of a scientific man not in official employ. It appears to me a somewhat striking anomaly that we do not possess in this country any practical entomologist in the service of the Government who would occupy the same position as those employed by several of the members of the United States of America. I do not overlook the existence of the Entomological Department of the British Museum; but the officers attached to it are necessarily occupied with the custody of the collections in their charge. What is wanted is a consulting entomologist who should be at the disposal of the different Government offices, and who should receive a retaining fee in return for investigating and reporting upon the various questions with regard to which, as will be seen from the following pages, the residents in various British dependencies are constantly needing his aid.