1 



PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



£130 ; and in 1880, £100. Although the receipts during the past 

 year were somewhat less than in 1879, the smaller expenditure has 

 enabled your Treasurer, after withdrawing the £52 on deposit at 

 the Bank, to invest £98 15s. in the purchase of £100 Consols, and 

 to cany forward a balance of £26 14s. lid., in which sum is in- 

 cluded £18 received for subscriptions in advance. The Society 

 now holds Consols to the amount of £203 4s. 6d. to represent its 

 indebtedness to its 31 Life Members, and there is also a larger 

 balance in hand than before. ' 



The Council has now to announce the expiration, in accordance 

 with the rules, of the term of office of your President, Dr. J. Gwyn 

 Jeffreys, P.E..S. During the two years the Society has had the 

 advantage of his presidency. Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys has presided at 

 nearly every meeting which has been held on either side of the 

 County. He has also been most assiduous in adding to the list of 

 members, and to his influence, exerted at a most important time in 

 the history of the Society, is in a great measure due the large in- 

 crease in the number of members during the last two years. Though 

 the nett increase in the entire roll of the Society in 1879 and 1880 

 is exactly 100, during this time 140 ordinary members were elected, 

 nearly one-third of this number having been proposed by your 

 President. While the Society, under its former title of the Watford 

 Natural History Society, was peculiarly fortunate in having such a 

 distinguished scientific man as Mr. John Evans as its first President, 

 it has been equally favoured in having been presided over by Dr. 

 Gwyn Jeffreys in the first stages of its existence as the Hertford- 

 shire Natural History Society. 



The Council regrets to have to announce the resignation of your 

 Librarian and your Curator. The former office, the duties of which 

 were previously undertaken by your Secretary, has been held 

 during the past year by Mr. Arthur Cottam, who now finds that 

 other engagements prevent him from retaining it. For a similar 

 reason Mr. W. Lepard Smith now resigns the curatorship, an office 

 which he has filled from the formation of the Society six years ago. 



In concluding this report the Council desires to express the 

 obligation the Society is under to the Committee of the Watford 

 Public Library. Although the meetings at Watford are now not 

 nearly so frequent as formerly, the Public Library is still the 

 principal place of meeting, and, as containing your library and 

 museum, is the home of the Society. 



