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Field-Naturalists' Club. Some of these societies dealwith literary and 

 historical subjects only ; others confine their observations largely to but 

 one branch of Natural History ; while of others, again, owing to the 

 very doubtful policy of leaving the management in the hands of men 

 who, from business engagements or advancing years, do not possess 

 the necessary animus to keep the societies' aims prominently to the 

 front, or, in fact, to keep the society itself alive in its fullest sense, it is 

 to be feared thev have fallen rapidly into the background and are not 

 conspicuous for the amount of scientific work done. In none of these, 

 probably, or at least in very few, is there any attempt at obtaining a 

 membership outside of the city in which the society is located ; and it 

 is in this particular respect, if in no other, that this society has already 

 secured a prominent place in the fact, that our membership even now 

 embraces persons from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. 



At the last meeting of the .Royal Society of Canada a scheme was 

 suggested for the acquisition and arrangement of various scientific data, 

 such, for instance, as the arrival and departure of our birds, the first 

 flowering of plants, the putting forth of the leaves on the various kinds 

 of forest trees, and other kindred subjects, work which has been done 

 locally by the members of this society ever since its organization. By 

 many of us, however, I think it will be admitted that, while ttie Royal 

 Society, from its elevated position as the leading literary and scientific 

 society of Canada, stands in a particularly favorable position in regard 

 to its smaller, and I think we may allow the expression, sister societies 

 in literature, science and art, to lend the support of its great influence 

 to all those which, as working organizations, must ever be the great 

 o-atherers and collaborateurs as regards the material from which 

 scientific conclusions may be derived, the work itself must and can only 

 be done by persons laboring actively in the out-door realms of Nature, 

 and in actual contact with the things which surround us, whether in 

 the hard and puzzling problems of geology, in the pleasant and instruc- 

 tive study of botany, or the delightful study of our birds, insects and 

 shells or in some of the more minute forms of animal and plant life. 

 The materials thus obtained by these working societies, like the Field - 

 Naturalists' Club, and the quantity of these should, in a short time, 

 reach large proportions, can then be discussed, and the conclusions 



