PROCEEDINGS FOR 1883. LVII 
and important field of insect life. One of our members, and also a member of that Society, Mr. 
Saunders, has just published an admirable worl on the insects injurious to cultivated plants. The 
fauna of our great lakes is little known. <A curious and inviting branch of investigation is the 
union and overlapping of marine and freshwater life in our great river; and the greater depths of the 
ocean, beyond the reach of the amateur dredger, are little explored, except in so far as the work has 
been done for us by the American Fish Commission, Those who would work at such subjects find a 
great lack of collections for reference, and there is also a want of illustrated works and monographs 
bearing on Canadian Zoology, One of the functions of this Society should undoubtedly be to foster 
and aid research in various specialties of these kinds, and so to publish the results as to render them 
accessible to students, In connection with these investigations of the future, | may here refer to 
that vast field of the ‘geographical distribution of plants and animals, so fertile in important results 
in geology as well as in biology, which this great American continent offers so wonderful oppor- 
tunity for cultivating, A glance at the titles of the papers read at our last meeting is sufficient to 
show the truth of these remarks ; and had our transactions been published, a mere reference to the 
contents of the volume would have sufficed. 
I have dwelt rather on those branches of science to which I have given attention than on the 
fields cultivated by our literary and historical sections, and what I shall say on these will be rather 
to point out their connection with the physical and natural sciences. Science has a literature of its 
own—a great and increasing literature, and in many of its aspects charming and attractive as well 
as solid and instructive. Inasmuch also as our literary sections have annexed history, archeology, 
anthropology and psychology, they are largely scientific. This fact is personified in the presidents of 
the two literary sections. My valued and distinguished friends, Dr. Wilson and Mr. Lemoine, will 
allow me to say that they are as much archeologists and naturalists as literary men, and if it were not 
that science is very generous and selfdenying, it would protest against their exclusive possession by 
the literary sections. Geology in our times has shaken hands with history over the story of prehis- 
toric man, Physiology, psychology and philology have become inseparable friends, and popular 
science contends on equal terms with history and fiction for the public eye and ear. More than this 
—nature rather than art forms the basis of enduring literature. It is Wordsworth who has said : 
“ Mo the solid ground of nature trusts the mind which builds for aye.” It is on nature rather than on 
the graces of style or the flights of imagination that a lasting literature must stand, and, therefore, 
science, which is the interpreter of nature, must be the friend and ally of literature. Especially is 
this the case in a country whose history has depended more on the great natural features of the land 
itself than on the men who have come and gone; and where our real poetry is that of our great 
rivers, our vast lakes, our boundless plains, our forest solitudes and our changeful climate—unwritten 
poems which have impressed themselves on the minds and hearts of our people more than anything 
man has yet said or sung. He who best interprets these great unwritten histories and poems, and 
who best unfolds the prophecies that lie hidden in them, will build up the greatest and most endur- 
ing name in Canadian literature. For these reasons I rejoice that our Society embraces both science 
and letters, and I am profoundly convinced that it is for the highest interest of Canada that her 
scientific men shall be men of culture, and that her literary men shall be thoroughly imbued with 
scientific knowledge and scientific habits of thought. 
The Vice-President, the Hon. Mr. CHAUvVEAU then said : 
Milord, Altesse Royale, Mesdames et Messieurs,—L’année dernière nous inaugurions sous la pré- 
sidence de Son Excellence le Gouyerneur-Général cétte institution dont l'existence est due à son ini- 
tiative et je puis ajouter à sa persévérance; aujourd’hui nous tenons notre seconde session annuelle 
sous la présidence conjointe de notre bienveillant patron et de Son Altesse Royale la Princesse Louise 
dont le précieux concours en fait presque une seconde inauguration. 
Pro. 1883. x. 
