YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS UNION — ANNUAL REPORT. 9 



On all these occasions the Union has been indebted to the 

 kindness which the landowners of Yorkshire have always been so 

 ready to manifest in facilitating research on their estates ; and the 

 facilities which the various railway companies which run on Yorkshire 

 soil have granted, have contributed their share to promoting the 

 success of the Union's investigations. 



The Societies which constitute the Union now number 38, the 

 withdrawal of three Societies which are no longer connected with 

 it — the Brighouse Friends' Botanical Society, the Hull Great 

 Thornton Street Wesleyan Field Naturalists' Society, and the 

 Driffield Literary and Scientific Society — being counter-balanced by 

 the accession of other three — the Ellesmere School (Harrogate) 

 Natural History Society, the Hull Scientific Club, and the Hull 

 Geological Society. 



The statistics which the Secretaries of the different societies are 

 kind enough to furnish remain as stated in the last annual report, as 

 at 2,109 associates and 375 members — altogether nearly 2,500 — the 

 time not having arrived for sending out the schedules on which such 

 information is given. 



The Membership of the Union still continues about stationary, 

 and the necessity of a large increase in it will form a subject for the 

 direct attention of the next Executive, additional support being 

 necessary to enable the Union to carry out the investigations which 

 fall to its lot. 



The Financial Position of the Union has suffered considerably 

 from the disablement of the Secretarial staff of which mention was 

 made at the beginning of this report. At the time of Mr. Roebuck's 

 accident the receipt-books usually in the hands of the Local 

 Treasurers had all been called in, and he, as General Treasurer, was 

 on the point of re-issuing them to the gentlemen who as Local 

 Treasurers have been of so much service to the Union. On this 

 account the subscriptions could not be collected by them, and 

 consequently the balance-sheet now submitted shows only about 

 half the amount of receipts that would appear in the balance-sheet 

 of an ordinary year. Attention will, of course, be specially given by 

 your Treasurer and Executive during the next few months to the 

 collection of outstanding subscriptions, and it is to be hoped that 

 the members will co-operate in this endeavour. 



In connection with this subject your Executive recommend that 

 members possessing a banking account should instruct their bankers 

 to pay their subscriptions annually to the bankers of the Union 

 (Messrs. Wm. Wms. Brown & Co., Leeds). For this purpose the 

 Union Treasurer will be pleased to provide a form of authorization. 



Jan. 1889. 



