IN MEMORIAM — PROFESSOR THOMAS KING. 9 



full term of three years, and again, in 1884, for a like period. 

 In 1886, however, he was elected a Vice-President; and, on the 

 expirj of the triennial term of office in 1889, he was once more 

 appointed a member of Council. On 31st October, 1893, he was 

 unanimously elected President of the Society, which office he con- 

 tinued to hold at the time of his death. He also frequently 

 rendered important services as a member of the Library. Museum, 

 Pesearch, Microscopical, Publishing, Summer, and other Com- 

 mittees appointed by the Council. 



It may now affi^rd us some gratification to remember that dur- 

 ing wfiat have proved to be the closing years of his life he has 

 enjoyed the highest honour which the Society could bestow. 

 Never was that honour more worthily conferred ; never have its 

 duties been more faithfully performed. As President, he occupied 

 the chair at nearly every meeting of the Society and Council since 

 the date of his election, although he often expressed a wish that 

 the Vice-Presidents should, when present, be allowed to exercise 

 that privilege. 



Throughout the period of nearly eighteen years during which 

 he has been connected with our Society, he was rarely absent 

 from a meeting. Although his numerous other engagements 

 occupied nearly every evening, these were so arranged as to admit 

 of his regular attendance at our meetings. His circle of friends 

 in the Society was very large, for nearly everyone knew him, and 

 all who knew him regarded him with feelings of friendship. The 

 meetings were to him a source of keen enjoyment. Like every 

 true naturalist, he found pleasure not merely in acquiring infor- 

 mation but in imparting it ; and his readiness at all times to do 

 so is apparent from the records of the Society, which show that 

 he was an exhibitor of specimens at more than a hundred 

 meetings. These exhibitions extended over a wide range of 

 objects — zoological, botanical, and microscopic — and frequently 

 included large series of fungi and other plants, which were so 

 clearly explained as to render them interesting and instructive to 

 all present. 



• The papers and communications submitted by him to the Society 

 were also numerous. They all relate to botanical subjects. Most 

 of them have been published, either wholly or in abstract, in the 

 Proctedings and Transactions of the Society. 



