7 
branches of Natural History, particularly if such lectures were 
well illustrated by striking diagrams presented vividly to the 
audience by the aid of lime-light. Such lectures would attract 
the whole body of our Members, and be the means of awakening 
a keener interest in natural phenomena and the wonders of 
creation which are scattered around us, ready to yield their 
scientific secrets to the earnest investigator. 
If it be true, as has been said, that “Science is measure- 
ment,” it is no less true that ‘‘ Science is statistics,” For instance, 
a carefully tabulated statement of the daily rainfall, the prevailing 
winds, the succession of wild flowers in a given area, the migra- 
tion of birds, or the deposition of beach behind a groyne, would 
afford valuable material for a paper, and the patient observer 
would hardly fail to have gathered useful experience or to enrich 
his contribution with thoughtful deductions. 
But to bring these reflections to a practical issue, with a 
direct bearing upon what I believe to be the secondary important 
cause of the adverse influences which have affected the attendance 
of Members at the Meetings of late years, I would venture to 
point out a way by which the Members of this Society might 
render most valuable service to the scientific world, and at the 
same time kindle within themselves a burning thirst for the 
acquisition of special knowledge, which has hitherto been beyond 
their reach, for want of superior guidance or sympathetic help in 
their studies. 
I would suggest that we should form ourselves into a series 
of what may be called “Scientific sub-Committees,” or separate 
and distinct groups, each representing a different branch of 
Natural History, and each composed of such Members who feel 
a special interest in a particular study. Each of these “ sections,” 
working on a systematic and pre-arranged plan, would do for its 
own branch the same sort of work that our talented friend, Mr. 
_F. E. Sawyer, has done for the Meteorology of our County. 
From time to time each section would be expected to bring up a 
report recording their observations on the fauna and flora, the 
geology, and mineralogy of some portions of Sussex ; and such 
reports would, I feel convinced, form most interesting subjects of 
discussion, with this additional advantage, that all the Members 
of that section would attend the reading of their report or paper, 
and attract also the presence of many others, by reason of the 
animated discussion which would arise upon a subject which had 
_ been investigated and mastered by several of those present. 
Such reports would be of lasting use ; the more so, because the 
vicinity of Brighton has been a favourite habitat of flowers and 
animals seldom or never found elsewhere. 
Thus, in the department of Botany alone, we have the starry- 
headed clover (¢rifolium stellatum) at Shoreham, and the spiked 
