LINNBAN SOClETr OF l.ONDOX. 2^ 



interest in that object; our eagerness to acquire all the 

 information that any one oE our Fellows is willing to impart : our 

 i-eadiness to supply to all of our Fellows any information tliat we 

 as individuals are privileged to possess. We are further on a 

 footing of absolute equality in our appreciation of the truth that 

 all of us have not enjoyed identical opportunities of acquiring 

 knowledge ; all of us are not endowed with the same power of 

 conveying information. 



It may be a drawback to us as individuals that our opportunities 

 of acquiring knowledge have not always been the same. But this 

 is no disadvantage to the Society as a whole, nor does it affect 

 our mutual esteem. We do not look with disregard upon a 

 Fellow who has mastered the methods needed in xA'orking out 

 the life-history of some organism inimical to plant or animal life 

 because he tells us that he has not mastered the methods required 

 in fixing an immune plant or in preparing a protective serum. 

 Nor do the masters of these diverse methods look with disregard 

 upon the taxonomic workers whose philosophic study may have 

 provided all three w4th criteria that aid them in fixing their 

 respective bench-marks. 



Whether the gift of exposition be always innate or sometimes 

 acquired we need not now consider. What w'e know is that it 

 exists in varying degrees. Our experience warns us that it may 

 be equally variably manifested in future candidates for election. 



Hitherto the name of every candidate for admission has come 

 up for consideration in the order determined by the date on which 

 the paper proposing him was presented to the Society. This 

 arrangement was satisfactory when the number of Fellows was 

 not limited. If the only considerations to be taken into account 

 in futnre had been our prerogatives as individual Fellows this 

 method might continue numodiiied. It will, indeed, be desirable 

 that, for the present, this method be followed still so far as 

 concerns the greater, number of the proposals that come before us 

 when vacancies in our List have to be filled. But we have now to 

 take into account tlie interests of the Society as a whole. This 

 new consideration is at least as important as the privileges of ])ro- 

 posers of candidates. 



We shall all, as heretofore, take every opportunity that offers of 

 proposing for election candidates able to help the Society by their 

 work in those branches of natural history with which we, as 

 individuals, are especially conversant. But we shall all in future 

 desire that at every election we be given an opjjortuniry of con- 

 sidering the claims of candidates likely to add materially to our 

 knowledge of natural history in branches outside our own 

 particular fields of study. We must therefore arrange that there 

 be chosen from among the candidates for Fellowship on each 

 election day as large and as constantly increasing a proportion as 

 possible of new Fellows calculated to be as able as they are willing 

 to impart the information they may possess. 



