2 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



Society and the Royal Archaeological Institute. I should like 

 also to refer to a lady, Mrs. M. E. Ratcliff who was formerly 

 a member, having joined in 1896, and was, so long as her 

 health permitted, a frequent attendant at our meetings. 

 Though not actually a member of the Club, we also regret the 

 loss of the wife of our Vice-president, Mr. Alfred Pope, one of 

 our four surviving original members, and offer him our 

 sympathy. Since writing the above, I have in addition to 

 record with great regret the loss of another of our members, 

 the Bishop of Salisbury, who passed away only a few days ago. 

 He joined the Club in 1912, and though we have had his good- 

 will, his episcopal duties have prevented him from taking part 

 in our meetings, which have of course been very few owing to 

 the War. 



ZOOLOGY. 



The iron bacteria form an interesting group of small 

 organisms and have played an important part in the formation 

 of bog-iron ores. They collect the iron from the water in 

 which they live, placing it in the condition of ferric hydroxide 

 in the sheaths which form their dwellings, and sometimes 

 cause troublesome incrustations in water pipes. A book 

 dealing with these has lately been published, in which six 

 species are described. A national collection of type cultures 

 of bacteria has lately been established at the Lister Institute 

 of Preventive Medicine and will be of great use to bacterio- 

 logists in their investigations. There are still many common 

 diseases, probably of bacteriological origin, of which the cause 

 is not known, such as measles, scarlet fever, mumps, &c., so 

 that there is room for research. Experiments have shewn 

 that flies, which often have various germs attached to them, 

 will completely free themselves of them in a few days, probably 

 by mechanical means. One often sees a fly cleaning itself. It 

 has been discovered lately that the red corpuscles of the blood 

 alter in size, being smallest the first thing in the morning and 

 increasing to a maximum about noon and becoming larger with 

 any violent exertion. The life history of the lobster in its 



