220 Address delivered at the sixth and last 
been, of their zeal and ability, we have cause to anticipate a 
successful result. 
Having now taken a rapid retrospective view of the contri- 
butions Paule to zoology, during the year of my presidency, I 
beg to refer, in an equally rapid sketch, to the general pro- 
gress of the science since the first institution of our club. In 
ae progress it is our boast to assert that we have held, di- 
rectly or indirectly, an adequate share. I shall not here revert 
in detail to the various publications in which we have cooper- 
ated during that period, and which have already been laid 
before you Sou this chair, at your preceding anniversaries. 
But I cannot avoid pointing out, with some degree, I trust, of 
well founded exultation, the immediate ene we have 
exerted in the labours of our parent Society. Since the sepa- 
ration, or rather, I should say, the branching off, of that learned 
body from the Royal Society, a step which the principle of 
the division of labour in so wide a field as that of science ren- 
dered expedient and necessary, the Linnean Transactions 
have continued to be the repository of the natural science 
of this country. Now, if we look to the zoological papers 
published in those Zransactions during the last few years, 
we shall recognise them as emanating, with one or two 
exceptions, immediately from ourselves. Nor is the number 
of such zoological contributions disproportioned to that which 
it might reasonably be expected to be, in comparison with 
those supplied from the two other kingdoms of nature. On 
the contrary, we have reason to rejoice in the comparison. 
The papers in the last number of the Linnean Transactions 
are exclusively zoological. ‘To the pages also of the Zoolo- 
gical Journal, a periodical work, established as subsidiary 
to the Transactions, for the purpose of bringing out such 
papers as did not bear the high finish or impor rtance adapted 
to the parent work, and such likewise as required a more 
speedy publication than the latter could promise, this club has 
been a zealous contributor. That work, in fact, has been 
supported exclusively by the members of this body, or by their 
friends who have written for it under their influence. 
It is not, however, to the number of the works contributed 
to zoology during the last few years, that I appeal as a test of 
the advance of the science, but to the general spirit in which 
they have been conceived and executed. The philosophic 
enquirer, who traces out the progressive march of this delight- 
fo) 
ful branch of knowledge, will at once perceive that the days of 
compilers have gone by, and the days of original thinkers have 
risen in their place. He will see, that even in the first neces- 
sary steps of our science, in the recording of facts and the 
