I9OI-1902.] Presidential Address. 389 
go to the dees and observe their skilful, plodding, well-planned 
. labour; and to these again—the ant and the bee—let him go 
when he finds too great individualism, or the tendencies of 
the anarchist, developing within him; for there he will find 
law and order—inferiors, superiors, and equals all working 
together in perfect harmony for the good of the community as 
a whole. By such observation he will find much to encourage 
and stimulate him to become a good citizen; and there he will 
find successful co-operation and the good fruits of wise and 
prudent “combines.” 
From these and “the squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of 
play,” with, if not because of, its accumulating store, he gets 
the idea of the savings bank, and learns to “make hay while 
the sun shines” and so provide for the proverbial, if all but 
inevitable, “rainy day.” When he thinks of his duty towards 
those who may be dependent upon him, he gets his lesson 
from the pelican, which, in poetic fancy, gives its life for its 
young, and he straightway goes and assures himself, so that 
when his life ebbs away the proceeds of the life assurance 
policy may be equally beneficial to the nestlings he may leave 
behind. And, when he thinks of his habitation, with its goods 
and chattels, he remembers the fabled phoenix, out of whose 
ashes arises another nestful, and off he goes to seek the 
benefits of fire insurance. The operations of the stock ex- 
change, too, do not escape the observations of the naturalist, 
for in them he sees what is not unlike the upward tossing of 
the bull with its horns, and the downward pulling of the bear 
with its paws—the innocent lamb looking on the while, not 
knowing how much its fleece is an object of keen desire to 
some of those who keep the bulls tossing up and the bears 
pulling down! 
As membership in our Society is not limited to the lords of 
creation, I am glad to find our proceedings this evening graced, 
as usual, by the presence of so many ladies. To them may I 
venture to say—Do not be over-anxious as you wrestle for 
a solution of that vast and highly important, though most 
distracting problem, “ Wherewithal shall I be clothed?” Take 
your vasculum, come with us on one of our excursions, and 
“consider the lilies of the field.” They will proclaim to you, 
in eloquent silence, that without toiling or spinning on their 
