368 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



Many of us looked upon Sir Joseph's face for the first time 

 in June last, when he opened the new Botanical Buildings of 

 Glasgow University, and delivered a delightful address on the 

 life of his late father, Sir William J. Hooker, who at one time 

 was Professor of Botany in our University. When we remember 

 that this remarkable man, Sir Joseph Hooker, was the friend 

 of Charles Darwin, and that he was for many years the Director 

 of the Royal Gardens at Kew; when we think also of his earlier 

 days, when he was one of a small exploration party which went 

 to investigate the flora of the Himalayas, as recorded in his 

 " Himalayan Journals," we cannot but congratulate ourselves 

 on such a letter as this, which may well go into the Society's 

 archives. 



It is very gratifying that our own Society and the Geological 

 Society were privileged to prepare and issue, in September last, 

 in connection with the visit of the British Association, the 

 admirable Fauna, Flora, and Geology Handbook, which contains 

 seventy-six lists of groups of organisms, recent and fossil, to 

 be found in the Clyde district. These lists were prepared, in 

 the main, by members of our own and of the Geological Society. 



Scientific societies for the promotion of the study of Nature 

 are everywhere feeling the pressure of the counter-attractions 

 of physical recreation — golf, cycling, football, &c, but it is to be 

 hoped that there will always be found in every community a 

 body of persons, small though their number may sometimes 

 be, who will delight in devoting their leisure hours to the study 

 of the beautiful and ever-interesting works of the Creator. 



The Lord Provost (Mr. Samuel Chisholm, LL.D.), who was 

 introduced by the President as the Lord - Lieutenant of the 

 County of the City of Glasgow, spoke as follows : — Mr. Chairman, 

 ladies, and gentlemen, — You will not, I am sure, question my 

 statement when I say that I have not unfrequently been placed 

 in considerably embarrassing circumstances — an embarrassment 

 sometimes arising from one cause and sometimes from another 

 — and you will still less question the statement, I think, that 

 I never found myself in circumstances so supremely embarrassing 

 as the present. I have understood that no one was admitted to 

 speak save those who have given up a considerable part of 

 their lives to the study of natural history. However, if the 



