200 The Ottawa Naturalist. 



If we will do this, I can promise a successful season and one that we can 

 look back upon as one of the pleasantest and most instructive in our history. 



With an expression of thanks to those who are assisting; us, I will bring this 

 short address to a close. First, to the chairman of the evening, Dr. MacCabe, Principal 

 of the Normal School, one who has for many years past taken an active and real 

 interest in the work of the Club and to whose kindly office and influence with the Hon. 

 Minister of Education we are indebted for the permission to use the Assembly Hall 

 for our winter course of lectures. And then to Mr. Scott and the Ottawa Electric 

 Light Co. for their generosity in supplying on such a magnificent scale the brilliant 

 illuminant that we are using to-night to light up our microscopic objects. No little 

 of the success and eclat of this conversazione is due to the fact that these gentlemen 

 put at our command the electric lamps which to-night serve such a useful and 

 ornamental purpose. And lastly I may be allowed to tender our thanks to those 

 ladies and gentlemen, Miss Lamb, Mrs. and Mr. Beddoe and Mr. Miller, who of 

 their goodness have made our programme so entertaining by vocal and instrumental 

 numbers. We have enjoyed and appreciated their efforts on our behalf and I know I 

 may assure them not only of our sincere thanks but also thaUhey have very materially 

 added to the pleasures of the evening. 



ADDRESS BY DR. R. W. ELLS, 

 President of the Ottawa Literary and Scientific Society. 



At the Conversazione given by the Literary and Scientific Society and the 

 Field Naturalists' Club, at the opening meeting of the joint lecture course for the 

 present season, Dr. Ells, the president of the former, in a brief inaugural address 

 touched upon the work and aims of the two societies represented. In the course of 

 his remarks he said : 



" The inauguration of the present lecture course, under the joint auspices of the 

 Literary and Scientific Society and the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club naturally calls 

 for a word of explanation. For some years the feeling has existed and has been 

 frequently expressed by many members of both societies, that their interests, and 

 those of the public generally, or at least of those who have been our patrons 

 in the past would be better served if some scheme of federation or affiliation could be 

 arranged, by which the energies of both societies could be concentrated, and the interest 

 in the lecture courses could be maintained to the end of the season, rather than 

 that it should diminish, as has been unfortunately too often the case. For it will, I 

 think, be conceded by everyone interested in the question, that so many lecture 

 courses are given in the city every winter, by societies and church organizations, that 

 the public interest in these is apt to grow weak and the attendance poor, except in 

 very exceptional cases. In view of this fact it seemed advisable to the boards of 

 management that the two societies here represented, should amalgamate the lecture 





