LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDOX. XXI 



Society, and to which its past and present prestige has been so 

 mainly due. There will, I sincerely believe, be material enough 

 for both forms. Papers of great value will, I doubt not, continue 

 to be commimicated, of a nature which requires speedy publication, 

 \vithout the necessity of quarto illustrations. Exclusive of these 

 two considerations, however, it must be confessed that there is 

 some diiJiculty in laying down any very definite rule as to the 

 nature of those papers requiring each particular form of publica- 

 tion respectively, and it must be left to the consideration of the 

 Council to determine the question in the case of each individual 

 paper. "With all these difficulties, the circumstance of bi-inging 

 home to every Fellow of the Society, within reach of the post, 

 an important portion of our Transactions, at stated and not 

 distant pei'iods, without trouble or expense to the recipients, has 

 hitherto been most satisfactory, and will, I am confident, tend, 

 when the system is rendered fully eifective by experience and 

 habit, to increase the numbers and importance of the Society, by 

 bringing into our ranks many zealous cultivators of natural history, 

 who, from their remote residence, would not otherwise have been 

 induced to join us. With regard to one element of the plan, the 

 sale of the Journal out of the Society, I have to state, that com- 

 paratively few of the separate parts of Zoology and Botany have 

 been disposed of; the sale of the entire work has been somewhat 

 greater. 



I cannot take leave of this subject without adverting to the 

 effective manner in Avhich the new scheme has been commenced. 

 Por this, and for innumerable other good offices, — I may say, for 

 the general conduct of the affairs of the Society, — we are deeply 

 indebted to the talent, the devoted zeal, and the disinterested 

 laboiu-s of our excellent and esteemed Secretary. I cannot, in his 

 presence, enlarge on the obligations which we are constantly and 

 imceasingly under to Mr. Bennett. It would, I know, be painful 

 to him, and you are all too well acquainted with his great sendees, 

 — requited only by his own sense of usefulness, and by our grati- 

 tude, which I know he values, — to require that they should be 

 dwelt upon by me. 



It is with much pleasure also, and with sincere acknowledgement, 

 that I feel called on to advert to the able and cheerful manner 

 in which he has been seconded in this work by JNIr. Kippist. 

 Without such zeal and ability it wovdd have been impossible to 

 have commenced and cari'ied out a new and untried plan such 

 as this. 



