2 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



late Lord Lister pass without a word of notice, especially 

 as his brother belonged to our Club for many years and we 

 still number his niece, Miss Gulielma Lister, amongst our 

 Members. Lord Lister's unique position as a scientist and 

 one of the greatest benefactors to the human race is well 

 known, and I cannot say more than that we have doubtless 

 all been indebted to his discoveries at one time or another, 

 if not for our lives, yet for some relief from suffering. I 

 should like here to mention that Miss Lister has lately brought 

 out a second edition of the Monograph of the Mycetozoa, 

 written by her father and now revised and augmented by 

 herself. A paper on this subject by the late Mr. Arthur 

 Lister, F.R.S., is contained in Vol. XIII. of our Proceedings. 

 I now pass on to my first heading of Zoology, and shall as 

 usual endeavour to give a slight account of some of the 

 principal scientific discoveries and developments which 

 liave taken place in the past year. 



ZOOLOGY. 



There is often an absence of evidence as to the antiquity 

 of things which we regard as recent discoveries, but it some- 

 times unexpectedly turns up. In regard to sleeping sickness, 

 about which we have heard so much of late years, a des- 

 cription was published in 1732 of the existence in 1721 of a 

 disease called " the sleepy distemper " on the Guinea coast. 

 The latest question that has been before the public in this 

 connection is whether the big game of Africa, though the 

 disease does not harm them, form permanent receptacles 

 for the trypanosomes, whence they may be conveyed by the 

 agency of tsetse flies to human beings, but this is so far 

 absolutely unproved, the only wild animals hitherto found 

 naturally infected with the trypanosome of sleeping sickness 

 being, apparently, two monkeys, the few investigations 

 made having been negative in their results, as far as wild 



