366 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



papers and in other ways. The second name is that of Mr. 

 Thomas Ferguson, his brother; and the third is that of Mr. 

 Thomas Gray, a noted conchologist, now residing in Glasgow. 

 We have held communication with those three gentlemen within 

 the last ten days. 



I have noted down the four things which this Society set 

 itself to do. These were to meet (1) for the exhibition of 

 specimens, native and foreign; (2) for the reading of com- 

 munications; (3) for excursions for mutual improvement; (4) 

 for the encouragement, in all its branches, of the pursuit of 

 natural history. These are very much the Society's objects 

 still. 



You may well believe that in the course of so long a period 

 as fifty years a large number of names come to the front that 

 ought to be alluded to on such an occasion as the present, but 

 it is impossible to furnish a complete list of even the more 

 prominent who gave their time to the study of Natural Science. 

 I have jotted down a few of the names. Let me ask you to 

 listen to what they are : — Dr. John Grieve ; Dr. David Robertson, 

 who for forty years studied marine life, and whose papers in 

 the Transactions of the Society are very numerous. With Sir 

 John Murray he founded what is now the Millport Marine 

 Station, and he has brought to the Clyde much renown in 

 certain departments of scientific study. The next name is that 

 of Mr. Roger Hennedy, who taught many of us now present, 

 and whose Clydesdale Flora we in the West of Scotland could 

 not get on without. Thomas Chapman, lepidopterist, the 

 cutler of Buchanan Street; Robert Gray, the ornithologist; Dr. 

 James Stirton, the cryptogamic botanist; Professor J. J. F. X. 

 King; Peter Cameron; Mr. Harvie-Brown; Mr. Robert Kidston; 

 Professor John Cleland; Professor Alexander Dickson; Professor 

 I. Bayley Balfour; Professor Bower. It is deeply interesting 

 to go back over these names, and to see what workers in 

 certain departments have done during years now past. There 

 is not time to do more than name the gentlemen who have 

 been presidents of the Society during the last twenty years — 

 Mr. Harvie-Brown, Dr. Stirton, the late Dr. David Robertson, 

 Professor Bower, the late Professor King, and Mr. Robert 

 Kidston. Amongst the secretaries are — Mr. Robert Gray, for 



