2 ADDRESS BY THE PEESIDENX. 



Societies of our kind are becoming very numerous and useful 

 in this country. My friend Sir Walter Elliot has kindly sent me 

 extracts from his opening address as President of the Botanical 

 Society of Edinburgh in 1870, the appendix to which contains a 

 list of provincial societies and field clubs then existing in Great 

 Britain and Ireland, with full particulars. In England there were 

 95, of which 51 published periodical transactions and proceedings, 

 or occasional scientific papers. The oldest of these societies (the 

 Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester) was founded in 

 1781, and in 1870 consisted of 1513 members. The Kev. Henry 

 H. Higgins, the President of the Liverpool ^Naturalists' Field Club, 

 informs me that his society has over 500 members, in about equal 

 proportions of the sexes. Mr. Henry Brady, a well-known zoolo- 

 gist, and a Fellow of the Hoyal Society, writes me word that the 

 Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club has nearly 700 members. This and 

 the Berwickshire Naturalists' Field Club, which was founded in 

 1831, are celebrated for their valuable publications. I took much 

 interest in the formation and establishment of the Royal Institution 

 of South "Wales, having been, in 1835, the first honorary secretary, 

 and afterwards president. My old Swansea schoolfellows, Mr. 

 Justice Grove and Lord Aberdare, were also presidents in other 

 years. The Eoyal Institution of South Wales has now 348 mem- 

 bers. The Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical Society 

 has a peculiar feature — viz. in not confining its field excursions 

 to its own district, but in making expeditions once a year to 

 distant places, such as South Devon, the Clyde, or Falmouth, for 

 dredging and other natural-history work. Many ladies take part 

 in these expeditions. Scotland, in 1870, had 19 societies, of which 

 1 1 were publishing ; the oldest was the Perth Literary and Anti- 

 quarian Society, and dated from 1784. The Glasgow Philosophical 

 Society had the greatest number of members, 540. In Ireland 

 were 7 societies, 5 publishing ; the oldest was the Belfast Literary 

 Society, and dated from 1801. The Belfast Naturalists' Field Club 

 was the most numerous, and had 232 members. 



Lancashire and Yorkshire Field Clubs can boast at present of 

 being the most active ; and they comprise a great many working 

 naturalists — workmen in every sense of the word. I have been 

 much and often gratified by receiving specimens of land and fresh- 

 water shells for my opinion from men who were evidently common 

 artisans in the principal northern towns ; and I valued their com- 

 munications not less than those which I had from my own col- 

 leagues. I shall not forget the pleasure with which I welcomed 

 the communications of the Banff shoemaker, Thomas Edward, the 



