92 ORGANISATION 



during the annual meeting of the Association, and 

 invites its chosen menagerie, when in a free interval 

 between the calls of official engagements the most 

 eminent scientific supporters of our body are able 

 to remember that dulce est desipere in loco. Forbes 

 also established an association of metropolitan Red 

 Lions in London ; but that has not survived. Its 

 mention, however, may serve as a reminder of another 

 similar foundation, at once of greater intimacy and 

 eminence, the famous x Club, which, maintained 

 from 1864 to 1892, was limited in actual membership 

 to nine but included five presidents of the British 

 Association Hooker, Huxley, Tyndall, Spottiswoode, 

 and Lubbock. This had no direct connexion with 

 the Association, but we read of it, free from trammels 

 of formality, determining the destiny of the highest 

 offices in the Association, and otherwise acting as a 

 power behind the throne. It is only to be regretted 

 that, as in the case of the Association itself, so many 

 informal incidents of the gatherings of both x's and 

 Red Lions, which might have delighted the historian, 

 must have been lost. For example, chance preserves 

 the recollection of Hooker drinking a wineglassful 

 of ink at a Red Lion dinner before realising the 

 presence of the pen with which he was expected to 

 sign the attendance book but as a rule such episodes 

 must remain only in the memories of those privileged 

 to attend the functions which gave them rise. 



PUBLIC INTERESTS AT THE MEETINGS 



The heavy evening meal has mercifully lost its 

 place as the principal theme of hospitality, but the 

 whole question of conviviality moved John Phillips 



