3° 



PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



Only more profound than my appreciation is the misgiving lest 

 my discharge of the multifarious and often difficult duties attach- 

 ing to this Chair may have failed to justify that confidence. It is 

 no extenuation to say that I have endeavoui-ed to discharge those 

 duties to the utmost of my ability, ever having regard to the best 

 traditions and the highest interests of the Society ; that is the 

 least that a President can do. Whatever measure of success may 

 have attended my efforts is to be attributed to the ready and 

 effective help of my colleagues in office, whose co-operation and 

 sympathy have always been at my service, and to the loyal sup- 

 port ever extended to me by the Council. If I am to-day in a 

 position to hand on to my successor, unimpaired, the trust com- 

 mitted to my charge, it is because my ambition to do so has been 

 directed aright by experience more extensive and judgment more 

 matui'e than I could myself command. 



The Peesident then addressed Dr. Gunther, and in presenting 

 the Linnean Medal, specified the considerations that had moved 

 the Council to make this aw^ard. 



The Pkesident said : — 



" Dr. Giinther, — Each succeeding Session of our Society brings 

 with it no event more interesting than the pi^esentation of the 

 Linnean Medal to whomsoever the Society delights to honour. 

 But this year the event is of quite unusual interest, inasmuch as 

 the attendant circumstances are altogether unprecedented. For 

 the first time in our annals a Fellow receives our Medal who has 

 already presented it, and a President presents it to his immediate 

 predecessor in this Chair. 



" So well are you personally known, so familiar are your 

 scientific achievements, to the great majority of the Fellows, that 

 any words of introduction or commendation from me might well 

 be regarded as altogether uncalled for, were it not that the regu- 

 lations insist upon a statement of the grounds upon which the 

 Medal has been awarded. Let me say, then, that our award has 

 been made in recognition of your attainments as a Zoologist, and, 

 more particularly, of your profound and probably unparalleled know- 

 ledge of the Lower Vertebrates, as exhibited in such works as the 

 monumental catalogue prepared by you of the Fishes in the col- 

 lections of the British Museum, in such volumes as those on the 

 Giant Tortoises and on the Eeptiles of British India, and in many 

 remarkable memoirs such as those on Hatteria and on Ceratodus. 



" Whilst this is the all-sufficient justification of the action of 

 the Council, I am free to admit that where our admiration for you 

 as a man of science led the way, our regard for you as an old and 

 ti'ied Fellow and former President closely followed. It is with 

 this combination of sentiments that I ask your acceptance of the 

 Linnean Medal that it is my privilege to present." 



