THE NATURAL HISTORY REVIEW. 



I^watfcmrgs d S&aat&t*. 



DUBLIN UNIVERSITY ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL 

 ASSOCIATION. 



FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 21, 1856. 

 R. Ball, LL.D., President, in the Chair. 

 This being the first meeting of the Session, the President read his 



ANNUAL ADDEESS. 



When on Saturday last your Council told me it was my duty to address 

 you, it came on me quite by surprise : it seemed but as yesterday that I 

 had done so ; time passes so quickly to those who are fully employed. 

 Yet it is certainly a fact that a year has glided away — I trust not with- 

 out advantage to many of us — and that we shaU have in this Associa- 

 tion proof that good work has been done in the period, and that not a 

 few of you have been active in the pursuit of practical zoology, in some 

 of the departments to which I ventured to call your attention last year. 



In noticing the occurrences of the past year, I have not to mourn the 

 loss of so many of our members and friends as on the former occasion ; 

 yet there is one loss which I deeply feel, that of my old and excellent 

 friend Yarrell, one of our Corresponding Members, whose kindness and 

 hospitality I often enjoyed. Eager to obtain information himself, he 

 was equally willing to give it. I may mention, as an instance, that he 

 placed at my disposal, during two days which I spent in his house, all 

 the materials in his possession which he thought could aid me in a 

 work on Fisheries, in which I had made considerable progress, but which 

 pressure of business and illness forced me to lay aside — I hope not for ever. 



Since our Association was established (now but a brief period), we 

 have had a great loss of most valued members, men who loved natural 

 science for its own sake, and to whose exertions it mainly owes its pre- 

 sent rising position ; by being frequently associated with them, their loss 

 occasions in me a sense of loneliness which our junior members cannot 

 yet and probably will never know, — for this loss is likely to be replaced 

 by additions, from the numbers of persons now enlisting in the pursuit 

 of natural science. We must hope that the great majority of these 



vol. rv. b 



