156 Transactions of the Society. 



exhibitions, and I feel sure that it matters not whether an exhibition 

 is on a large scale, using many Microscopes, or a complicated piece 

 of apparatus, or whether it is a single object shown under a single 

 Microscope, the interest that that exhibition will have, and the 

 pleasure and profit it will impart to others, largely depend on whether 

 it has, or has not, been carefully thought out and prepared 

 beforehand. When an exhibition has been prepared it is sure to be 

 successful ; it may not attract the attention of everyone, because it 

 may not be in his own particular line of work ; but if an exhibition 

 is well done, it is more than likely to interest observers beyond the 

 circle of those for whom it is specially intended. 



While dealing with the subject of exhibitions, your Council has 

 thought that the state of the funds of the Society did not justify it in 

 incurring the expenditure necessary for a special exhibition, such as 

 the Society has given in former years. In fact it is doubtful whether 

 such a large exhibition does any real good to the Society, and whether 

 the smaller exhibitions, held at our ordinary meetings, where only 

 one subject is dealt with, are not of more value, from an educational 

 point of view, than an exhibition upon a larger scale, where a number 

 of heterogeneous subjects are presented, and where the opportunity 

 for studying any particular one of them is necessarily less. Jn any 

 case, judging from the number of attendances, it would seem that 

 these smaller exhibitions have been much appreciated. It may be of 

 historical interest to know that one of the largest, if not the largest 

 microscopical exhibition ever held was given by this Society forty 

 years ago, at the South Kensington Museum ; 300 Microscopes were 

 exhibited, and the attendance exceeded 3000. Another very large 

 exhibition was, in 1864, given at Bath ; we know neither the number 

 of attendances nor of Microscopes, but the latter must have been 

 fairly large, as it is recorded that they were insured for 6000/. 



There is just one item in this year's Keport which cannot be re- 

 garded as quite satisfactory, viz. the small number of papers we have 

 received ; this may be due, as I have before pointed out, to the extreme 

 length to which specialisation is at present carried. There may be 

 found a Society for every " ology " but two that this Society deals 

 with, the exceptions being " diatomology " and " foraminiferology." 

 Therefore until special Societies are formed to consider those subjects, 

 we may expect to receive papers from investigators in those branches 

 of study- Going back to the first ten years of this Society's existence, 

 it will be found that the average number of papers is 6 • 3 per annum 

 (in this enumeration addenda, if read on a different date to that of 

 the original paper, and short notes, are counted as papers). Although 

 we have during the past year doubled the number of papers read 

 during the years of the Society's youth, yet it can hardly be said that 

 we have kept pace with the great increase that has taken place in 

 biological research. Let me draw the attention of biologists and 

 others to the two great advantages with regard to the publication of 



