LrtTNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 1 9 



can it be said that the scientific activity of the Societ}' shows any 

 falling off. Our publications have maintained their usual high 

 level, covering a wide field of interest, both botanical and zoo- 

 logical. Moreover, as I mentioned last year, we have been issuing 

 the final parts, long overdue, of Messrs. Forbes and Hemsley's 

 ' Enumeration of Chinese Plants,' which ought to be completed 

 within the present year. As regards quantity, we have at any 

 rate published as much as our financial resources have permitted. 

 We have also undertaken to publish — with the assistance of a 

 grant from the Royal Society — a series of papers giving the results 

 of a Plankton Expedition to the Bay of Biscay on H.M.S. 

 'Research' in the year 1900. These papers, which are eventually 

 to form a separate volume of the Transactions, are being prepared 

 by eminent specialists under the direction of Dr. G. H. Fowler ; 

 and two of them — a general account of the expedition by Dr. 

 Fowler, and an account by our Zoological Secretary of the 

 Crustacea collected — have already been communicated to the 

 Society. 



It will be remembered that, in previous years, the experiment 

 was tried of marking certain of the meetings as specially botanical 

 or zoological : an experiment that can hardly be said to have been 

 so conspicuousl)^ successful as to \\arrant repetition for another 

 year. Accordingly we have reverted, during the present Session, 

 to the old plan of indiscriminate meetings. However, on review- 

 ing the Session, there can be no doubt that many of the meetings 

 have been of more than usual general interest. I may mention, 

 in illustration, the meeting at \\hich (Dec. 17) Prof. Farmer gave 

 a brief account of his researches on Cancer : the meeting of Feb. 1 8, 

 which was devoted to a Mendelian discussion, which we owe to 

 Mr. Biffen, Mr. Batesou, and Prof. Weldon ; and the meeting of 

 April 7, at which Mr. Enock displayed a remarkable series of slides 

 of insects and flowers in natural colour photography. It is a 

 significant fact that these three important contributions to the 

 success of the Session, involved no publication on the part of the 

 Society. The moral that it points is, I think, this — that the 

 interest of our meetings does not depend solely, or perhaps even 

 mainly, upon the papers that are read with a view to publication. 

 Though such papers are of considerable and permanent scientific 

 value, they are, from the nature of the case, sometimes not 

 calculated to engage the attention of a meeting ; they are often 

 more interesting to read than to listen to. Whilst we must do all 

 that we can to encourage the contribution of papers of this calibre, 

 greater eflPort is, I think, necessary in the direction of stimulating 

 the interest of our meetings by the provision of important exhibi- 

 tions and subjects for discussion. I venture to assert, without fear 

 of contradiction, that no Society offers greater facilities than our 

 own for the discussion of biological questions as they arise. It is, 

 in fact, my ambition that this aspect of the Society's activity should 

 become more fully recognised : that discussion, altogether tabooed 

 in its early years, should develop, in these latter davs, into its 



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