1 8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



worthy of Govermnent support : in our own, until quite recently, they 

 have been left to private munificence and enterprise. It was indeed 

 a fortunate circumstance that two such men as Sir John Lawes 

 and Sir Henry Gilbert should have cooperated in establishing the 

 experimental farm at Eothamsted. They have now both gone from 

 us ; but the results of their labours remain as a splendid legacy to 

 our people, and as a lasting memorial of their devotion and genius. 



In Sir Ilenrj^ Collett we lose an accomplished botanist Avho Avas 

 also a gallant soldier and a capable administrator, a combination of 

 qualities that seems to be peculiarly British. It would not be easy 

 to estimate how much this Society, and other kindred Societies, 

 owe to the public services, and more particularly the Indian, for 

 the invaluable recruits whom we continually draw from their ranks. 



It is impossible to attend the meetings of the Society without 

 being conscious of tlie absence of the always welcome and once 

 familiar figure of the late A. W. Bennett. A laborious student and a 

 conscientious teacher of Botany, Mr. Bennett showed his loyalty 

 to this Society by the regularity of his attendance at our meetings, 

 to the interest of which he so frequently contributed either by 

 papers of his own or by valuable criticisms on those of others. 



Turning now to our Foreign Members, we find further cause 

 for regret. We tender oar respectful condolences to the scientific 

 world of l>ance on the death of Henri deLacaze-Duthiers, Mem bre 

 de riustitut, Professor of Zoology and Anatomy at the Sorbonne, 

 who was for forty years a Foreign Member of this Society. His 

 scientific activity extended over a period of more than sixty years, 

 and was as fertile as it was prolonged. Possessed of a unique 

 power of dissection, he investigated the Invertebrata, more par- 

 ticularly the Mollusca and the Coelenterata, with a success that 

 made him facile princeps among anatomists. But not less than 

 for his researches, he will always be remembered as the pioneer in 

 the establishment of marine biological stations, those at Eoscoff 

 and Banyuls having been founded and maintained by him. 



We have lost another eminent zoologist in Alexander Kowa- 

 levsky, formerly Professor of Zoolog}^ in the University of St. Peters- 

 burg. His reputation rests securely upon his embryological work 

 on the Invertebrata, and his investigation of those primitive 

 Vertebi'ata, the Ascidians and AmpMoicus. 



Nor has Botany suffered less severely than Zoology. I have to 

 record the disappearance of two honoured botanical names from 

 our list : those of Carl Cramer, Professor in the Zurich Poly- 

 technikum, and Eobert Hartig, Professor of Botany in the Faculty 

 of Forestry of the University of Munich. If Cramer leaves behind 

 him comparatively little independent work — which includes, how- 

 ever, some important papers upon the Morphology of the Algae, — 

 it is because many of the best years of his life were devoted to 

 collaboration with Naegeli, whose pupil he was and in whose 

 renown he must always share. Hartig made important contri- 

 butions to the science by his many and varied researches into the 

 structure, physiology, and pathology of timber-trees. 



