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advanced. He was very glad, therefore, to hear that there waa to be 

 another exhibition meeting held, and that ladies would be admitted upon 

 that occasion. With a view to making the gossip nights more interesting, 

 he thought they might select some special subject — say that of some 

 vegetable structure — and each member could then bring some particular 

 specimen in illustration of it. On the question of the Journal, he thought 

 that, from want of ^papers at the meetings, it had been for a long time 

 kept in a kind of strait-jacket, and it was worth inquiring whether it 

 could not be improved in some way so as to make it more interesting to 

 outsiders. 



Mr. Thos. Curties said that, in accordance with notice given at the pre- 

 vious meeting, he rose to move the following alteration in Rule I. : " That 

 the words ' except July and August ' be inserted after the words ' in every 

 month,' making the rule read as follows : ' That the Quekett Microscopical 

 Club hold its meetings at University College, Gower Street, on the fourth 

 Friday evening in every month, except July and August, at 8 o'clock pre- 

 cisely, or at such other time or place as the Committee may appoint/ " 

 This motion met with the approval of the executive, and had for its object 

 the relief of the officers from the labours of holding meetings in the summer 

 months, when so many membeis were away from home, and it was so difficult 

 to provide subjects. 



Mr. Goodwin inquired if it was proposed by this alteration to abolish 

 two meetings altogether, or to make them conversational meetings instead 

 of ordinary ? 



Mr. Curties said that the conversational meetings were not referred to at 

 all in the bye-laws ; arrangements as to them were left to the decision of the 

 Committee. 



Mr. Ingpen thought this resolution would commend itself to all the 

 members of the Club. It was one which had come before the Committee in 

 former years, at a time when he could not have spoken on the matter ; he 

 was, however, free to speak plainly now. He was certainly not one who 

 was revolutionary in his tendencies, but he thought the laws of the Club 

 need not be like those of the Medes and Persians, and did not imagine that 

 their little world was coming to an end because they had altered the date of 

 their annual meeting, or were proposing to drop two meetings at a time of 

 year when it was difficult to get either critical audiences or papers to read 

 before them. The more important question was whether they should be 

 entirely given up or should be turned into conversational meetings. For 

 his own part he hoped they would be retained, because he knew that it was 

 quite possible to get up very pleasant conversational meetings during 

 those months, although it was not easy to sustain general meetings. The 

 relief to the Committee would, he knew, be considerable, and he was only 

 sorry for two of their officers, the Librarian and the Curator, whose attend- 

 ance would still be necessary, and wished they could contrive somehow to 

 double their parts on those occasions. 



The President wished to say that the intention of the Committee was to 

 hold conversational meetings on the two evenings in question ; but as the 



