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THE 



JOURNAL OF MICROSCOPY & NATURAL SCIENCE: 



the journal of 

 The Postal Microscopical Society. 



" Kfioiuledge is not given us to keep, but to ijnpart : its woTth 

 is lost in concealment.^^ 



^be Ipreaibential abbreae. 



By Edwin Bostock, F.R.M.S. 





T is by your good pleasure that I am called upon to 

 occupy the position of President of the Postal 

 Microscopical Society for the year we are just 

 commencing, and I beg to return you my most 

 cordial thanks for the great honour you have 

 thereby conferred upon me ; but I regret at the 

 same time, upon your account, that your choice 

 has not fallen upon some other member of our 

 Society, possessing greater leisure and better quali- 

 fications for the post. 



As a true lover of Nature under all her aspects, and more 

 especially as manifested in those minuter forms of life that call for 

 the use of our favourite " tube" in their investigation, but living 

 in a remote country town where frequent intercourse with fellow- 

 workers is unattainable, and a microscopist is a sort of vara avis 

 in terram, I find myself situated amongst the ranks of those to 

 whom our Society affords a welcome help and stimulus by bring- 

 ing us in contact with the thoughts and actual labours of other 

 workers. So, with your kind permission, I propose this evening 

 to make a few remarks that have occurred to me in connection 

 with the working of our arrangements. 



New Series. Vol. II. 



1889. B 



