LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDOX. 17 



PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



Fellows of the Li^tnean Society, — 



It is with feelings of regret, of relief and of gratitude 

 that I rise to address you for the last time from this Chair. I 

 regret deeply to sever my official connection with the Society, 

 and yet I own to a certain sense of relief that I have served my 

 time and shall now be free to return to those excursions into the 

 unknown which are the chief business of a scientific man and 

 which are less wearing and perhaps more profitable in the end than 

 fortnightly excursions to London. Pleasant as my work here has 

 been, it is no light responsibility for one like myself, engaged in 

 active professional work more than 200 miles away, to undertake 

 for four years the duty of occupying the Presidential Chair of such 

 a Society as this. My dominant feeling, however, is one of 

 gratitude — both to the Pellows for having given me this oppor- 

 tunity of serving them, and to my fellow Officers for their 

 constant kindness and most efficient support. I ought to acknow- 

 ledge especially the consideration shown to me during my recent 

 absence for two months in the Gulf of Manaar, when the 

 Treasurer relieved me from my duties on Council and Colonel 

 Prain and the other Yice-Presidents took my place in this Chair 

 at the evening meetings. 



I congratulate the Society on having elected as my successor 

 that most eminent Botanist, and most genial of colleagues. Dr. D. 

 H. Scott, F.E.S., and I congratulate Dr. Scott on having attained 

 to the highest honour we can bestow on our Officers in the Society. 

 Dr. Scott's elevation to the Chair causes a vacancy in the secre- 

 tariat, and we are fortunate in having now selected Dr. Stapf as 

 our Botanical Secretary. Occasional changes in the Executive 

 are inevitable, and they have perhaps been unusually frequent 

 during the last few years, but we have only the happiest feelings 

 and anticipations in regard to the appointments made to-day. 

 That the Linnean Society may increase and prosper in all good 

 works, under the guidance of your new Officers, is the earnest 

 hope of your retiring President. 



We know, as Anthropologists, that it has been the custom in 

 some countries to put the king, chief, or high priest to death while 

 he is still in full vigour, bodily and mental, hoping thereby to pass 

 on his strength and spirit to his successor unimpaired by decay. 

 In some cases the practice permitted the chief to reign only for a 

 fixed period, at the conclusion of which he was inexorably led to 

 the sacrificial altar. 



You, in your wisdom, have adopted the same principle. Ton 

 recognise that the occupation of this Chair for more than four years 

 might lead to a deterioration in the active spirit which you rightly 

 demand should animate the head of our Society ; but more merciful 

 than the early Aryan tribes, who required that their leader should 



LINN. see. PEOCEEDIKGS. SESSION 1907-1908. c 



