PRESIDENT'S INAUGURAL ADDRES8. 217 



recollections are of how, as a child, I revelled in the beauty of the 

 insects and the flowers, just as, later in life, I have gloried in the 

 shifting beauties of the mists driving across the mountain-tops, or 

 sat for hours watching the sunlight dancing on the great water- 

 falls of the Alps or the Pyrenees ; but, beautiful as all these things 

 may be, if the enjoyment of them be not joined to anything else 

 there will come a time when it will pall, and when the mind 

 will lose its appreciation of what the eye contemplates, just as 

 we find that artists often cease to admire the beauties which 

 they cannot paint. Thus also, great as may be the amusement 

 obtained by the collector of merely beautiful objects, yet when he 

 devotes himself more seriously to the subject, and goes a little more 

 closely into it, taking a more special view, and trying to tread in 

 the paths of original investigation, then he will find that his 

 pleasure will be both greater and of a far higher quality than before. 

 If it be possible, in the position which you have called upon me to 

 occupy, for me to assist any member of the Club in mounting from 

 the pursuit of amusement to the more important study of a subject, 

 from that which gives pleasure in a small degree to that which 

 affords it in a higher sense, it will at all times be my desire to do 

 so to the fullest extent of my power. There are many ways in 

 which those who take an interest in microscopical subjects go to 

 work. It is recommended by some that they should go out 

 collecting generally, bringing home a great variety of objects, and 

 then setting themselves to the task of endeavouring to identify 

 them. By so doing no doubt they impress upon the mind general 

 ideas of the way in which such objects are divided into classes, and 

 form some notions of their outward appearance; but it is after all 

 laborious and rather ungrateful work, occupying a great deal of 

 time and attention, and if it be repeated many times it leaves little 

 opportunity for other things, and causes the collector often to 

 pass by objects of greater interest and importance. I am personally 

 more inclined towards the view that it is better for a man to take 

 up something special which he can grasp more closely ; and if he 

 wish to get a different class of objects identified, then to obtain 

 assistance in so doing. I cannot help seeing that we have in this 

 Club avast amount of manipulative power, a great number of first- 

 class instruments, and of competent observers ; but I am not quite 

 sure that we make the best of them. There are vast fields around 

 us which, if not absolutely unworked, are only partly worked, and 

 I believe that most of our members would find far more valuable 



