160 



CHAPTER VII. 



1871-1880. 



In this decade, as in the last, there was a change of Presidents. 

 The Marquess of Tweeddale died on December 29, 1878, and 

 at the next Scientific Meeting, on January 14, 1879, the 

 Chairman, Professor Newton, F.R.S., Vice-President, thus called 

 attention to the work of the late President: 



I am sure there was no Fellow of the Society who took a livelier or 

 deeper interest in its welfare than did the late Lord Tweeddale ; and if 

 proof of this assertion seem to anyone wanting, I have but to refer to the 

 facts that he was not merely content with giving us the countenance of 

 his high social position, not merely content with presiding at our Council 

 Meetings, and discharging the formal duties of the office he bore amongst 

 us, but thai he actively participated in our scientific work, as witness the 

 valuable and carefully elaborated papers with which he from time to time 

 enriched our publications, the last of which * you will hear read to-night. 

 I believe I am right in saying that since these Scientific Meetings were 

 established, we have never had a President who was so well, so intimately, 

 known to the majority of the Fellows who attend them, or one who was so 

 competent to appreciate the papers read or the communications made at 

 them ; and this, I need not point out to you, has been of great benefit to us. 



It became the duty of the Council to select a duly qualified 

 person to fill the vacant chair. Their choice fell on Professor 

 (afterwards Sir William) Flower, Conservator of the Museum 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons. In announcing this fact to 

 the Annual Meeting on April 29, 1879, they said: 



The late Marquess was pre-eminently suited, not only by his social 

 position, but also by his attainments as a naturalist and his business-like 

 habits, to be the President of the Society. . ; . In selecting for this high 

 office, however, the name of Professor Flower, one of the most distin- 

 guished zoologists of the present day, and for many years a most active 

 and efficient Vice-President, the Council feel sure that they will receive 

 the approbation of the Fellows, and that their choice will be duly 

 ratified. 



♦ " Contributions to the Ornithology of the Philippines, No. xii." — Proceedings^ 

 1879, pp. 68-73. 



