PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 5 



published in Vol. I. of our journal, will show that they are to be 

 found in the most remote parts of England ; some in Scotland, 

 some in Ireland, and some even in Portugal ; and will prove 

 that our society is filling the field of work marked out for it by its 

 founders. 



Of course, no society like ours can have existed for thir- 

 teen years without having met with practical difficulties and 

 hindrances. In the pages of the earlier note-books and presi- 

 dential addresses, numerous complaints are to be found of 

 breakages of slides; thus, one essential to progress, the safe 

 transit of slides, had to be, if possible, secured. The ques- 

 tion of boxes long vexed the members of the society, so im- 

 portant was it deemed, and so truly important was it that a 

 prize was offered for the best box. Twenty-one boxes were sent 

 in to compete, and of these twelve were subjected to practical use, 

 a test before the days of the parcel post, and much more severe 

 than now, when a breakage is a comparative rarity, and the prize 

 was duly adjudged to Mr. C. D. Holmes, but these boxes had in 

 their turn to give way to others, the invention, I believe, of our 

 worthy secretary. Then, too, there were many complaints with 

 respect to the quality, and more particularly the repetition of 

 slides ; complaints also of the circulation of slides of common- 

 place objects, and of the want of relation of one slide to another. 

 On this point there can be no question that great progress has 

 been made, and much of this progress is unquestionably due to 

 the alteration in the rules made at the annual meeting, held 

 Oct. II, 1883. 



I am sure that all the members of our society will acknow- 

 ledge that the plan of sending six or more slides in one box, 

 instead of four slides in as many separate boxes, has been 

 attended with the happiest results. Better slides have been 

 circulated. Series of slides illustrating varying points of structure 

 in allied species of animals and plants having become possible, 

 the opportunity has been seized by many members, and our boxes 

 of slides and their accompanying books of notes have alike gained 

 in coherency and interest to an extent even greater than was 

 anticipated. 



The question of the preservation and publication of our notes 



