CORRESPONDING SOCIRTIES. 337 
that may be taken it is important that facts and figures should be cited by 
each Society in addition to its general views. 
The circular is signed by the President and General Officers of the Associa- 
tion and ten members of the Committee. 
Mr. John Hopkinson (Hertfordshire Natural History Society and Field 
Club) introduced the following subject :— 
Lhe Financial Position of owr Local Societies. 
A few days ago I examined the most recent balance-sheets of a dozen of 
our affiliated societies, taking only those which I knew to be doing good local 
work. A bare majority appeared to be in a sound financial position, but 
the rest were not so. ‘Two had transferred funds from their life-membership 
account to provide for their ordinary expenditure, one of these transferring 
£10 and leaving a balance of £5 due to the Treasurer. One had spent £10 
more than its income and had a balance of £10, so that with another similar 
year its funds would be exhausted. One had an adverse balance of £52, and 
the report stated that the work of its museum was much crippled for want of 
adequate funds ; its expenditure included interest on bank overdraft. The 
fifth showed a deficiency of £73. Thus five out of the twelve appeared to be 
in a critical position from want of funds. The figures given are approxi- 
mate only. 
I will now give a little information about the Society which I represent 
and its financial position. 
When, on removing from London to Watford in 1874, I suggested the 
formation of a Natural History Society and asked a geological friend to be 
Treasurer, he hesitated to consent because, he said, his office would be a 
sinecure, for there were not half-a-dozen scientific people in Watford. The 
Society was founded in January 1875, and numbered 150 in its first year, 
including five honorary and five life members. The membership extending 
over the county, the title of the Society was changed, in 1879, from the 
Watford to the Hertfordshire Natural History Society, and in its palmiest 
days numbered 288 members of all classes and possessed over £350, mostly 
invested. 
About that time a botanical member, A. R. Pryor, died and bequeathed 
to the Society his botanical library, herbarium, MSS., and £100 (reduced to 
£92 by legacy duty) for the upkeep of the library. His MSS. chiefly con- 
sisted of a Flora of Hertfordshire, which the Society published at a loss of 
£205 on the subscription list for it, and since its publication the sale has 
realised on the average scarcely one-half per cent. per annum of that loss. 
Owing to loss of members from lack of interest in East Herts, to deaths 
and the removal of members from the county, chiefly from Watford, and to 
the few new members who can be obtained, the income of the Society is now 
greatly reduced, only £100 is invested, being half the amount of the composi- 
tion fees of forty existing life-members, and there has lately more than once 
been an adverse balance at the end of the year. 
When the Society was founded scarcely anything was known of the natural 
history of Hertfordshire, using this term in its widest sense, except the 
geology, and to that the members have added much information in the 
Transactions. The meteorology of the county has been very thoroughly inves- 
tigated. For twenty years the monthly results of observations at four 
Climatological Stations have been published annually (for twelve of these 
years at five stations), and for the whole period of thirty-four years tables 
of the monthly rainfall at numerous stations, now numbering over fifty. 
Owing to the large amount of tabular matter these meteorological reports are 
expensive to print. The information they give has proved of great practical 
value in questions relating to water-supply. In addition to the publication 
of Mr, Pryor’s Flora, much botanical information has been given, chiefly 
relating to cryptogamic plants. In almost all departments of zoology much 
1909, Z 
