DUBLIN NATUEAL H18T0ET 80CIETT. 69 



Council would recommend a further carrying out of these Meetings in 

 the ensuing Session. 



So many years have now elapsed since this Society was founded, that 

 your Council deem it necessary to review in brief the many important 

 additions made to Irish Natural History through papers read before this 

 Society. 



In 1838, to meet a deficiency long felt in this country, the Nattral 

 HiSTOEV Society of Dublin was founded, *' having for its sole object 

 the elucidation of the Natui-al History of Ireland, which it proposed to 

 effect by forming a standard collection of species, and by holding Even- 

 ing Meetings, at which original communications relating to the natural 

 liistory products of the island might be read and freely discussed." 

 That same year the nucleus of your present valuable Museum was formed, 

 and increased so rapidly by donations (the value of a Museum, at that 

 time the only one of its kind in the city in which duly authenticated 

 specimens could be made available for comparison, being fully apparent 

 to all), that your Society was soon compelled to remove their collection 

 to apartments much more extensive than had been at first anticipated. 



Whilst in the full career of its usefulness, the famine years caused in 

 this, as in all societies solely supported by private subscription, such a 

 falling oft' in its income, as compelled the Council in prudence to give up 

 the rooms then held, and for some years the collections were not availa- 

 ble for public inspection. The Monthly Meetings still continued to be 

 held regularly, and many new facts were brought forward and valuable 

 donations still poured in, so that when, on the return of prosperity to the 

 country, your Society once more was in a position to exhibit its collec- 

 tion, it was found to be much increased in specimens of the rarer species, 

 many of them then and still unique. Your Council, however, found 

 itself still imable, through paucity of funds, to render the whole of the 

 collections available, and therefore directed its attention, in the first in- 

 stance, to those portions of the collection which, being of a compara- 

 tively perishable nature, required more immediate attention, hoping, 

 as has indeed been the case, year by year to be enabled gradually to de- 

 velop the other resources of the collection, and thus render it a com- 

 plete key to the identification of the rarer Irish species. 



Another matter also caused a drain on the funds, the great and 

 steadily increasing value of the papers read before the Meetings press- 

 ing on the Council the necessity, in justice to the Society and the 

 authors of communications, of providing some permanent and available 

 form of Transactions, in which the claim to priority of discovery 

 should be preserved, and published in a form suitable for general 

 diffusion, and thus form by degrees Annals of the Natural History of 

 the country. The Council, therefore, resolved to devote a portion of the 

 funds of the Society to chronicling the discoveries brought fon^-ard at 

 the Meetings, and has been enabled, through means of an advantageous 

 agreement with the " Natural Histoiy ReWew and Quarterly Jounial 

 of Science," to publish in full authorized Reports of the Proceedings, 

 which not merely enjoy the full advantages of the circulation of that 



