PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



and that on the Origin of Angiosperms, by Messrs. Newell Arber 

 and J. Parkin, Avhich gave rise to an excellent discussion. 



The number of new Fellows we have elected this Session, 32, 

 is unusually large, and includes active workers in both sides of 

 our Science — whose closer co-operation we value. 



The death of Mr. William Mitten. A.L.S., the well-known 

 Bryologist, left a vacancy which the Society filled up on January 

 17th by electing Mr. W. H. Pearson as an Associate. Any 

 Pellow examining the claims of the five men who were proposed 

 on that occasion, could not fail to be struck by the high order of 

 merit they all presented. It is a matter of congratulation that 

 our Associateship is so highly prized by recognised workers in 

 Science ; but still I think many of us felt some regret that we 

 could give the honour to one only of five such excellent candidates, 

 all of whom were well-qualified and worthy. 



The death of our Foreign Member Professor Frans Reinhold 

 Kiellman, the successor of Linnaeus as occupant of the Chair of 

 Botany at Upsala, was especially startling, occurring as it did only 

 a few weeks previous to the great Linnean celebrations at his 

 University. The vacancy thus created in our list has not yet 

 been filled, but the matter will shortly come up before the Council 

 for consideration. Our losses in ordinary Fellows, thirteen in all, 

 have not been numerous this Session, but they include some 

 notable figures — both veterans of Science, such as Sir Michael 

 Foster and Mr. C. B. Clarke, and also younger men of high 

 distinction, such as Prof. Marshall Ward, by whose work and 

 counsel we might naturally have expected to profit for many 

 years to come. Mr. Clarke served the Society as President from 

 1894 to 1896, and he was a member of Council and a Vice-President 

 up to within a few months of his death. The obituary notices 

 of the deceased Fellows will be laid upon the table by the 

 Secretaries as usual. 



The Council has awarded the Linnean Medal this year to the 

 distinguished Botanist Dr. Melchior Treub, for many years 

 Director of the State Botanic Gardens at Buitenzorg in Java, and 

 in regard to whose services to Science I shall have something to 

 say at a later stage in these proceedings. 



Our arrangements for publishing the scientific results of the 

 first Percy-Sladen Trust Expedition were alluded to in my last 

 Address, and you may now be interested to hear of the progress 

 of that undertaking. The first seven of the reports were laid 

 before the Society on February 21st along with the first half 

 of the Introduction, including the Narrative of the Expedition 

 from Ceylon to Mauritius by Mr. Stanley Gardiner and Mr. 

 Forster Cooper. The second half (Mauritius to Seychelles) is 

 now nearljr completed, and five additional reports, dealing with 

 Lithothamnia, Ticks, Fishes, Stomatopoda, and Nudibranchiata, 

 are already in our Secretary's hands. That on the Fishes in- 

 cludes an account of 185 species, of which 51 ai-e new, requiring 

 8 new genera. Most of the above-mentioned sections of the 



