386 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



are the painful features in our annual retrospect ; and as time goes 

 on and some of us have to look back upon the recurrence of many 

 of those periods, at each of which some congenial spirit, some 

 respected associate in our pursuits had been taken from us, the sad- 

 ness of each successive stage seems to increase, and we are warned 

 that ere long we too must give up our place to others, to be missed, 

 we hope, and lamented in our turn. In contemplating the list of 

 those who have been taken from amongst us by death during the 

 past year, I had not intended to offer on my own part any anti- 

 cipation of the obituary notices which Mr. Bennett will presently 

 read to you ; but there is one name in that sad list, which my 

 own personal regrets and the irreparable loss to science occasioned 

 by his removal will not suffer me to pass over without a brief allu- 

 sion. Had I indeed been called upon to select the individual in our 

 Society, whom, for the variety and extent of his acquirements, the 

 versatility of his genius, the soundness of his judgment, the cer- 

 tainty and depth of his knowledge, the cheerful kindness of his 

 temper, the singleness and simplicity of his heart, his purity and 

 unselfishness of purpose — science and his friends could least have 

 spared, I know not whom I could have named as uniting in himself 

 all these qualities in such harmonious and equally balanced propor- 

 tion as Edward Forbes ; and when we recollect that he had only 

 arrived at that period of life when the mental powers become ma- 

 tured and the judgment ripe, — when too we saw him just raised to 

 that desired position, the very culminating point of his ambition, 

 where all his extraordinary qualities would have had full scope for 

 independent exercise, uncontrolled but by his own cautious and 

 intelligent judgment, — it is impossible not to feel that one has fallen 

 whom we may scarcely hope to replace, and that science has 

 sustained a loss, the depth of which, from the suddenness of the 

 shock, we are only now beginning to realize. 



Amongst the circumstances of the Society which call for parti- 

 cular notice at this time, one of the most interesting is the aspect 

 which it presents with reference to its foreign relations. We have 

 every reason to be assured, from the manner in which our choice of 

 Foreign Members last year was received by those distinguished na- 

 turalists on whom that honour was conferred, that this distinction 

 was never more highly appreciated than at present; and, as this 

 phase of our Society must always be especially important to us, as 

 determining its prestige amongst the most celebrated naturalists 

 abroad, I have thought it desirable to state briefly, as I did at the 



