LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. lxvii 
amount of £300; and although I should be of opinion that a portion 
of the sums received from Life Members should be added to those 
contributed by our other Fellows in order to meet our legitimate 
amount of expenditure, yet I trust we shall continue in each year 
to add to our permanent capital, or lay out in additions to our library 
or other valuable property an amount nearly equivalent to these 
compositions, leaving a sufficient annual income to increase rather 
than diminish the extent of our publications. 
But if I thus dwell with complacency on the prosperous state of 
our financial affairs, compared especially with what they were when 
Mr. Bell first took the Chair in 1853, let it not be supposed that I 
should willingly acquiesce in any relaxation of your efforts still further 
to increase that prosperity. The demands upon the funds of a Society 
established for the encouragement of natural science only multiply 
as the study of that science advances and becomes more general. 
The number of new works which we ought to add to our library for 
the use of our working members is greater every year; and much as 
we have extended our publications, we would wish to do so still 
more. New theories and speculations, popular and elementary works, 
find indeed that ready sale in the general world which renders them 
independent of associations like ours; but we must facilitate the 
publication of abstract researches and records of observation of 
detail, which are often remunerative only in the inverse proportion of 
their value; for we may thus assist in guarding against the perversion 
of the science by the multitude of crude but showy works issued in 
its name to please the paying public. I sincerely trust, therefore, 
that not only will our present members continue that support which 
is so necessary for our objects, but that they will induce such of 
their friends as feel an interest in natural science, and have either 
time or means at command, to join us in promoting the common 
cause. It has always appeared to me a mistaken idea that the 
Fellows of the Linnean Society should be limited to those who have 
shown a proficiency in natural science; we should hope indeed to 
include all such in our body; but they require the encouragement 
of friends and patrons, and work with increased zeal when aided by 
the association of those lovers of natural history, who, having little 
leisure to devote to it, contribute nevertheless to our means, attend 
occasionally our meetings, glance over our proceedings, and SeneTEn 
watch our progress. 
With respect to the working Fellows of the Society, whose numbers 
have augmented so much of late years, I trust it will not be thought 
presumptuous on my part if, in enumerating a few of the principal 
