XX PROCEEDINGS, 



The census of the Society at the end of the years 1894 and 1895 

 was as follows : — 



1894. 1893. 



Honorary Members 20 17 



Corresponding Members 1 2 



Life Members 50 51 



Annual Subscribers 193 180 



264 250 



It is seldom that the scientific world has lost in a single 

 year three men of such renown as Babington, Huxley, and 

 Henry Seebohm, a very brief notice of each of whom must now 

 be given. 



When Professor Babington, in 1835, commenced the prepai'ation 

 of his 'Manual of British Botany,' the labours of Continental 

 botanists were ignored in this country, no attempt having been 

 made to bring into haimony the nomenclature followed on each side 

 the English Channel ; but with the appearance of the first edition 

 of the ' Manual ' a new era commenced, and with each successive 

 edition (eight in all, from 1843 to 1881) the work of British and 

 Foreign botanists was brought more and more into unison. The 

 critical examination, also, of living plants rather than of herbarium 

 specimens convinced Babington that the plants themselves must 

 afford the characters for the definition of species — that we must 

 not define a species arbitrarily and then attempt to place under it 

 a number of slightly-differing plants — and this conclusion led him 

 to raise to specific rank many forms which were then generally 

 considered only to be varieties. The author of the ' Flora of 

 Hertfordshire, ' published by this Society, was a follower of 

 Babington, working in the field with his 'Manual,' but Pryor was 

 a pupil who went beyond his master, especially in his adoption and 

 practical application of the views of the most advanced foreign 

 botanists. Babington was born in 1 808 (at LutUow) ; his first 

 scientific paper appeared in 1832, and was entomological; he was 

 also an ardent archgeologist ; but since 1843 his books and papers 

 have been almost entirely botanical. He was elected Professor of 

 Botany at Cambridge University in 1861. 



The death of Professor Huxley is a loss to literature as well as 

 to science, for the lucidity of his exposition of scientific facts and 

 theories, and the vigour of his style, will make his works take 

 a high rank amongst the classics of science. He was the first 

 Dean of the Koyal College of Science, and for more than forty 

 years was connected with the Science and Art Department, having 

 succeeded Edward Forbes in 1854 as Lecturer on Natural History 

 in the Central School of Science, which has been metamorphosed 

 through the Boyal School of Mines into the Royal College of 

 Science. Essentially a biologist and pala3ontologist, Professor 

 Huxley also devoted much attention to the higher problems of 

 philosophical speculation, and by his popular exposition of the 

 theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, he has done more 

 than any other man to convince those who have not studied the 



