1855.] Linnean Society. 385 



May 24. 



Anniversary Meeting. 



Thomas Bell, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



This day, the Anniversary of the birth of Linnaeus, and that ap- 

 pointed by the Charter for the election of Council and Officers, the 

 President opened the business of the Meeting with the following 

 Address : — 



Gentlemen, 



At the last Anniversary Meeting of the Society, I stated my 

 intention on the present occasion, to take a brief review of the 

 progress which has been made during the intervening year in the 

 general interests of Natural History. It is not my purpose, in en- 

 deavouring to carry out this intention, to enter into any detail of 

 the various discoveries, more or less important, which may have cha- 

 racterized that period ; and still less to analyse the contents of 

 books or other publications on these subjects. These are of course 

 known to the cultivators of every branch of the science respectively ; 

 and I conceive that I shall more usefully employ the short time 

 allotted to this duty, by taking, as it were, a bird's-eye view of its 

 present state with reference to the past, and considering some of the 

 means by which the future interests of natural science, and the 

 welfare of the Linnean Society in particular, may be best promoted. 



As regards the present state of the Society, I think I may safely 

 congratulate the Members on the fact, that notwithstanding public 

 difficulties, unparalleled during the last half-century, notwithstand- 

 ing the heavy demands upon every one's income, the depression and 

 sadness of spirit which have well nigh weighed down every heart in 

 the nation, and the concentration of the popular mind upon the 

 harrovdng events which have been daily transacting around us, our 

 funds have increased, our Meetings have not fallen off either in 

 numbers or interest, and the communications which have been read 

 at them will not suflFer, in point of variety or importance, in compa- 

 rison with those of any former period. 



Many losses we have indeed sustained both by retirement and by 

 death, and there are some vacancies which it is no disparagement to 

 living excellence to mourn as not likely soon to be filled up. These 



