520 
EDITORIAL. 
The Committee have great pleasure in announcing that H. R. H. 
the Prince of Wales has honoured the Society by becoming not only 
a Life Member but also its first Patron. 
On receipt of H. R. H.’s gracious intimation H.EH. Sir George 
Lloyd, the President of the Society, sent the following telegram to 
Vice Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey :— 
‘* Please convey to His Highness respectful and heartfelt thanks of 
the members of the Bombay Natural History Society that His 
Royal Highness has been graciously pleased to become a patron 
of the Society. ”’ 
Although No. 1 of this volume was only sent out to members towards the 
latter end of January, the Editors had hoped to be able to issue the present 
number, No. 2, by the end of February along with the Index for the previous 
volumes and try and bring the journal out quarterly instead of at the very 
irregular periods of the past. Unfortunately our resolution has gone the way of 
so many New Year resolutions. We do not wish to blame the Press, but they are 
too popular and at the beginning of the year the extraction of proofs from the 
Press is as difficult as the extraction of an old wisdom tooth. Let us hope it is 
not as painful. 
The difficulty of bringing out the journal at regular intervals necessitates an 
increase in the size of each part and a complete journal is now too bulky to bind 
in one volume. We are issuing with this number therefore a title page and in- 
dex of contents of the first two parts so that they can be bound together as a 
half volume. The index of scientific names will, when issued, apply to the whole 
volume and can be bound up with the second half volume. 
A list of members of the Society, corrected as far as possible up to the end of 
1921, will appear in the index to Vol. X XVII and will not therefore be repeated 
in this number. The accounts for 1920 will also appear in that index number 
but some comment is necessary on the state of our funds at the end of 1921. 
The accounts for that year will be found at the end of this number. 
In 1920 our income from subscriptions was Rs.18,993 paid by 1,266 members 
for that year and we also received Rs. 2,582-0-0 on account of back and future 
subscriptions. Our expenses on account of the journal in that year were 
Rs.9,000 and we had notice of a very heavy increasein the cost of printing it, 
Similarly with salaries and office expenses. In 1920 the former were 
Rs. 14,700 and the latter Rs. 10,536 and on account of the growth of museum 
work and work in connection with the issue of the snake charts and the volumes 
on game birds, we knew that we had to face increased expenditure here. 
The Committee, therefore, recommended to members the advisability of in- 
creasing the annual subscription and at the same time raising the entrance fee. 
The Life membership fee was raised to Rs. 350 though old members were to be 
given six months grace to commute at the old figure of Rs. 200 should they so 
desire. These recommendations were accepted by the members and no less than 
60 commuted their annual subscription and became Life members. Out of a 
nominal roll of 1832 at the beginning of 1921, 432 names have disappeared, some 
because the increase in the cost of living neccssitated a careful pruning of subs- 
cription lists, others because absence from India had lessened their interest in 
the Netural History of India, a few we regret to say, because of death, but 
practically none because they did not consider membership of the Society 
worth an annual subscription of Rupees Twenty-five. 
