Iviii PROCEEDINGS, 



and as it is not likely that there will be any exceptional expendi- 

 ture it may be possible to carry out the recommendation made in 

 last year's Report to spend only the amount received for annual 

 subscriptions, leaving tlae miscellaneous receipts to be added to the 

 invested funds of the Society. 



The library is still at the old Board Room at the Waterworks, 

 where it is carefully housed but practically inaccessible to the 

 members. The donations received during the year have been 

 numerous. They are chiefly exchanges from other Societies, and 

 from the various scientific departments of the United States. 

 Your librarian has gone carefully through the library and regrets 

 to find many sets of serial publications incomplete. The library 

 is outgrowing the space available for it, and the question of 

 disposing of some of the books and unbound serial publications 

 not likely to be read by the members may have to be considered 

 by the Council and your trustees. 



Although the Annual Reports are essentially retrospective, it has 

 been usual to throw out hints in them for the future, and in no 

 previous year has there been a more cogent reason for this practice 

 than in the present one, the year of the " Diamond Jubilee " of 

 our Queen. How to celebrate the longest reign of any English 

 Sovereign is being considered by almost every public institution in 

 the countries over which Queen Yictoria has ruled for sixty years, 

 and something should surely be done by the Hertfordshire Natural 

 History Society. To help charitable institutions, especially our 

 Hospitals, is an admirable way of commemorating this event, but 

 a scientific institution is the only one which can well appeal 

 to a scientific society, as such. It is intended this year to found 

 a scientific institution for Hertfordshire, to the fund for which 

 many members of this Society have already largely contributed. 

 To the proposed Hertfordshire County Museum some forty members 

 of this Society have already promised to contribute nearly £600, 

 out of a total amount slightly exceeding £1,300. An excellent 

 site at St. Albans has generously been offered by Earl Spencer, 

 and although, for the complete scheme of the Committee which 

 has been appointed, £5,000 is required, it has been decided to 

 commence operations by putting up a building which can be en- 

 larged at any future time so soon as the sum of £2,000 has been 

 raised. If forty members of the Society can give £600, an average 

 of £15 each, surely the remaining one hundred and eighty can 

 give another £600, an average of less than £3 10s. each, and if 

 they do so the success of the scheme will be assured. The Council 

 therefore ventures to ask for a subscription from every member of 

 the Society who has not yet promised one, sums of even 1 Os. being 

 acceptable. It is intended to include within the walls of the 

 Museum a scientific library and also a lecture-room in which 

 meetings of this Society may be held. 



Such a commemoration of the Queen's reign will be peculiarly 

 appropriate, for it is mainly to her and to her Consort, Prince Albert, 

 in the earlier years of her reign, that we owe the magnificent group 



