THE PRESIDENT'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



James Fletcher. 



Members of the Ottaioa Field-jVaiitralists' Club, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



Another year has passed and it is again my lot to give you the 

 opening address of the winter course. It is with much pleasure that 1 

 have to inform you that the affairs of the Club are in a very satisfactory 

 condition. Our membership roll becomes steadily larger, and, I am 

 happy to say, includes several ladies. The Club is becoming day by 

 day more widely known and popular. Its transactions are sought in 

 exchange by kindred societies in all parts of the world, and I have no 

 hesitation in saying that it is having an appreciable effect here in Ottawa 

 towards educating the conmiunity to take an interest in tlie many 

 beautiful objects of nature which surround them on every side. I will 

 not, perhaps, go the length soifie of our correspondents do, and say 

 we are doing more than any other local Society in Canada in furthering 

 the study of Natural Science ; but yet it would be affectation not to 

 acknowledge that, for the age of the Club, and for the size of the 

 population of the city, from which it has to draw its members, the work 

 that has been accomplished is most creditable. In glancing through 

 the three parts of Transactions which have been published, one notice- 

 able feature is that the work has been evenly distributed, that it has 

 not all been done by one or two only of the most active members ; as 

 an instance, during the three winter courses of lectures, there have 

 been 31 papers on original work, and these have been read to us by as 

 many as 22 different members of the Club. Now, this. I consider, is an 

 exceptionally large proportion, for of course there ai-e one or two of our 

 leading naturalists from whom we like to hear something every year, 

 and also, at the same time, there are, as you all knoAv, several of even 

 our most active workers in the field who have never yet given us the 

 benefit of their studies and researches in the shape of written papers 

 which we could publish. In this year's programme you will observe 

 that there is only one set paper for each evening ; this has been thus 



