LINNEAN SOCIETY OP LONDON. XXI 



taken the task of selecting, laying out and arranging the speci- 

 mens, and Mr. Babington that of checking the names attached to 

 them. The Committee report their full confidence that, by this 

 means, a very complete British Herbarium will be formed, in which 

 all marked varieties will be included ; and there can be no doubt 

 that it wUl be found a most useful standard collection for refer- 

 ence. I cannot but believe that this new feature in our arrange- 

 ments will be viewed with the greatest satisfaction by the nume- 

 rous cultivators of British Botany, who will thus have, at length, 

 a complete and weU-arranged herbarium of our native plants con- 

 stantly accessible for consultation and comparison. 



It is not my intention to occupy your time by entering upon 

 any analysis of the papers, many of them of great interest, which 

 have occupied the Society at its meetings during the past year. 

 A glance at our two publications wiU sufB.ciently attest the zeal 

 and talent which have characterized them, and I believe I may 

 without hesitation assert that they have not been surpassed by 

 those of any former year. That the forthcoming part of the Trans- 

 actions will consequently maintain the character, both at home and 

 abroad, which has for so long a period attached to that our prin- 

 cipal publication, I cannot doubt. The Journal of Proceedings 

 also continues to give the greatest satisfaction in every quarter 

 from whence I have had an opportunity of obtaining an opinion, 

 and its efficiency and importance are now fully established. It 

 has enabled us to publish very many papers of high interest, 

 which but for such a vehicle could scarcely have been published 

 at aU, or at least only after a long interval. I may here aptly 

 quote the words of one of our most distinguished Fellows, who 

 thus expressed himself in a letter which I not long since received 

 from him : — 



"The number of excellent papers," he says, "which we have 

 had this, session, constitute quite an epoch in the history of Natu- 

 ral Science. I know of no Society at home or abroad that can 

 boast of such an array of valuable papers as we can already show 

 for this one half-session." 



The general satisfaction of the Fellows of the Society with its 

 present condition and with the manner in which its affairs are 

 conducted, is evinced by the cheering and I believe xmprecedented 

 fact, that the whole past year has not witnessed a single instance 

 of withdrawal from its ranks. I cannot but attribute this circum- 

 stance in great measixre to the manner in which their interest is 

 kept alive by the appearance at intervals of our Journal of Pro- 



