LINIfEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 49 



The day as well as tlie year demand that your President 

 should not conclude this Address without paying a tribute to tlie 

 Sovereign whom tLe Linnean Society has the high honour of 

 calling its Patron. How much of its prosperity and development 

 the Empire owes to the nobility of her character, the wisdom of 

 her counsels, the strength of her influence upon other nations 

 we all feel, but History alone will f?how. A great work like 

 that of the ' Challenger ' could only be accomplished in a 

 country in which the soil had been prepared for the culture of 

 all sciences by many years of a peaceful and beneficent govern- 

 ment ; and Biology may fitly ofier that great work as one of the 

 monuments by which the long reign of the Queen is commemo- 

 rated. And with the most loyal congratulations, which we 

 gratefully ofter to our Patron on the completion of the sixtieth 

 year of her reign, and, this day, of the seventy-eighth year of 

 her life, we join the hope that this country may for many years 

 enjoy under her rule the blessings which have been secured to 

 it by her devoted care. 



LINN. SOC. PROCEEDINGS. — SESSION 1896-97. 



