Poe WAL RE PORE. 
To the Members of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club : 
The Council to whose care, twelve months ago, you entrusted the 
management of the Club, in laying before you a.report of the year’s 
transactions, have great pleasure in being able to congratulate you upon 
the satisfactory conclusion of the first year of the Club’s existence. 
As many of you were not members of the Club in the early part of 
the year, it will not be out of place here to give a brief sketch of the 
principal events connected with its early history. For two or three 
years back, several young men interested in Natural History discussed 
the possibility of starting a society in this city devoted to the investiga- 
tion of the natural history of the vicinity. Nothing was done, however, 
till last winter, when it was resolved that an effort should be made. 
Circulars were sent to the members of tiie Ottawa Literary and 
Scientific Society, calling a meeting of all those favorable to the formation 
of such a society. To the great gratification of those interested, fully 
forty gentlemen attended the meeting held on the 19th March, 1879. 
After a lengthy discussion as to the form the organization should take, 
the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club was born and started in life with 
the following list of officers :—President, Lt.-Col. White ; Ist. Vice- 
President, James Fletcher ; 2nd Vice-President, Prof. W. R. Riddell ; 
Secretary, R. B. Whyte ; Committee, W. P. Anderson, J. Martin, J. A. 
Guignard, B. Small, W. H. Harrington. Prof. Riddell and Mr. 
Guignard having since then resigned their positions, Mr. W. D. 
LeSueur and Mr. W. R. Billings were elected to fill their places. The 
Council-elect met and drew up a code of rules for the guidance of the 
club, which was subsequently ratified by a general meeting called for 
that purpose. 
