CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 577 



that the first meeting should be on Thursday, and that the Conference of 

 Delegates should then decide themselves the dates of the subsequent 

 meetings. 



Professor Henry Louis seconded the amendment. 



Mr. Vaughan Cornish thought that business discussions rather than 

 scientific papers were required. Not two, but three, bodies were trying 

 to do business together — the Corresponding Societies Committee, the 

 Corresponding Societies, and the Delegates. His opinion was that it 

 would be well for the Committee to recognise the Delegates rather than 

 the Societies. 



Dr. Abbott said that it occui-red to him that the Delegates might meet 

 on Thursday morning at a breakfast. There was little probability that 

 any other social function could be arranged. The Committee should 

 encourage the formation of Unions of Local Societies. 



Mr, Barrowman favoured the proposition that the Conference at its 

 first meeting should arrange the following meetings. 



The Chairman remarked that it was evident that the Conference did 

 not wish to listen to papers such as might be brought before the Sections 

 of the Association. They desired rather to discuss the methods of pro- 

 cedure which would make local Societies successful. The Committee were 

 in general agreement with the spirit of the two resolutions. He gathered 

 from certain remarks which had been made that the local Societies were 

 often to blame for not giving Delegates copies of circulars sent by the 

 Committee to the Secretaries of the Societies long before the British 

 Association meetings took place. The present days for the Conference 

 seemed to be the best that could be chosen, and they had the advantage 

 of being known beforehand. The debate had been most useful in showing 

 the nature of the questions which the Delegates desired to discuss at these 

 Conferences. 



Mr. W. Gray said that the local Societies did not do their duties 

 adequately because those duties were not clearly defined by the British 

 Association Committee. He thought that the Committee should ascertain 

 at the first Conference each year how far each Society had acted in 

 accordance with the requirements of the Committee. The proceedings at 

 the second Conference might be settled by the Delegates themselves. 



The Chairman remarked that the new questions which had been raised 

 should have been sent in months ago when the resolutions of the Yorkshire 

 Naturalists' Union were received by the Committee. A discussion on 

 them might be initiated under a heading such as ' What are the aims and 

 scope of a local Society 1 ' 



Mr. W. Gray thought that the grant of a room in which Delegates 

 might meet at any time was an immense advantage, which might remove 

 altogether the necessity for a second meeting. 



Mr. T. V. Holmes (Secretary) stated that in consequence of the discussion 

 at Dover as to the best ways of improving the proceedings at the Con- 

 ferences of Delegates, he wrote to the thirty-seven Delegates inviting 

 suggestions which could be placed before the Committee a month later, 

 but received answers only from twelve. 



The Chairman said that, as he believed, the British Association did- 

 not intend that local Societies should work on any special or peculiar 

 lines in relation to itself. The Association wished that local Societies 

 .ihould do local work, and endeavoured to assist them by means of these 

 Conferences, by the exchange of its Report for their .Proceedings, and 

 1900. p p 



