THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 45 



they wanted, some to ask and others to answer. The success of 

 a society which would take charge of such matters was assured 

 from the start. The old societies aimed at describing for the out- 

 side world the characteristics of our natural history. The new 

 society, on the other hand, was a body of people anxious to help 

 one another to study what lay around them. This, to my mind, 

 is the fundamental distinction between a society such as this 

 and the Royal Society. Still we have to treat the distinction with 

 a certain amount of latitude. There are groups of animals and 

 plants in which popular interest is always great ; groups which, 

 by their beauty, their grace, and their wide distribution, are ever 

 attractive and ever before us. Pre-eminent among such groups 

 are birds, butterflies, and orchids. Groups like these it is per- 

 missible for us to study more deeply than others which are not so 

 generally known or so much sought after by the ordinary lover 

 of nature. These latter groups, when treated of in the Club, it is 

 better should be handled with a lighter touch. We can get a full 

 meeting for a paper on the habits, distribution, or specific characters 

 of a bird or a butterfl}', and on the paper we can get half a dozen 

 members to speak who probably know as much about the question 

 as the author himself We can do the same with ferns and 

 orchids, and to a less extent with a few other groups. Outside 

 this range the character of our papers must change. How would 

 our meetings be attended, or what pleasure and benefit would 

 members derive from a series of papers of equal standard dealing 

 with microscopic fungi, fossil echinoids, or a whole host of other 

 organisms. Let me not be misunderstood on this point. We 

 will take papers on any of these subjects gladly, but they must be 

 papers of a certain kind. They must be introductory and explana- 

 tory ; they must assume no knowledge of the subject on the part 

 of the hearers, or else they will fail in their purpose, which is to 

 instruct and rouse the interest of the members of the Club, and 

 not, as I before remarked, to lay before the scientific world some 

 original contribution to our knowledge of the group in question. 

 It is papers of these two distinct kinds that we in the main 

 require. Such have been our papers in the past, and by ad- 

 herence to this policy we have reached and maintained the 

 position which we now hold, for the Field Naturalists' Club 

 of Victoria is amongst the most vigorous and useful clubs of its 

 character to be found anywhere in the world, and we must 

 keep it so. It is clear, from our success, that we are meeting 

 the wants of a large number of people by the manner in which 

 the Club is conducted. I do not, of course, wish to be under- 

 stood as saying that no improvement is possible, for I certainly 

 think there is room for change for the better ; but I think that 

 the change should not be made from any mistaken ideas about 

 indefinitely raising the standard of the papers and discussions. 

 We are, before all, a ' popular ' scientific Club, and in our own 



