CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 727 
existence, and if there be such a flora the duty of the Recorder would be to keep 
it up to date by his own observations and those of his correspondents. These are 
merely somewhat random examples of what a local society should do. . 
In but few localities, however, can such a society entirely rely upon active 
workers ; there must be drones in the hive to supply the necessary funds by their 
subscriptions and to add to the numbers attending the meetings, and for them it 
will be necessary to provide popular lectures, which are now almost invariably 
illustrated by lantern-slides. In selecting such lectures regard should be had, so 
far as possible, to make them, while entertaining, conducive to serious study, so 
that there may be from time to time drafted from the army of drones recruits to 
swell the less numerous company of workers. The field meetings should be 
designed to investigate some special subject, for instance, the geology, botany, or 
some branch of the zoology of a district, under competent guidance, and while 
they should never be allowed to degenerate into picnics or mere pleasure parties, 
there is no reason why an occasional invitation of hospitality should be refused. 
In a fairly large society the workers may be sufficiently numerous to form 
sections, each with its Recorder or Secretary, but it is only in very large ones 
that the sections should hold meetings to which the members generally are not 
admitted. 
It is scarcely necessary to add that one of the objects of the Society should be 
the formation of a library of works on Natural History, especially of mono- 
graphs or books which will enable species to be identified. 
These brief remarks may suffice to promulgate a discussion on the general scope 
and management of a Local Natural History Society, and I therefore proceed to 
the second part of my title, the Publications of such societies. This I will con- 
sider, ard I should like to be discussed, entirely from the point of view of a 
bibliographer. The question is, therefore : How can the publications be rendered 
most useful and most easily referred to and quoted by inquirers on the subjects 
of which they treat? The Editors of many, if not of most of the Local Natural 
History Societies of the British Isles, appear to strive to make this most difficult. 
Therefore I will briefly, and as I have not the time at my disposal to give my 
reasons in detail, it may appear dogmatically, lay down certain rules which I 
think should be strictly adhered to. 
However much or however little is printed in a year, a volume with consecu- 
tive pagination, or it may be with two series of pages, one with Arabic numerals 
for the transactions or papers published, and the other with small Roman or italic 
numerals for the proceedings or accounts of the meetings, should eventually be 
produced, and this volume must not be so thin as to tempt two or more being 
bound in one, nor so thick as to require its being divided when bound. From 
300 to 600 pages is perhaps the greatest latitude which should be allowed to a 
volume, but much will depend upon the thickness of the paper and the number of 
plates. It is immaterial whether two or more such volumes are produced in a 
year, or whether one volume takes several years to complete. This volume must 
have a title-page with the date of its completion and place of its publication, a 
table of contents at the beginning and an index at the end, and somewhere within 
it, that is, not only on the covers of the parts which it comprises, the date of 
publication of each part (month and year), with the numbers of the pages of 
which each part consists. It can then be ascertained at a glance in what part 
any paper appeared and the date of its publication. It is also advisable that 
after the table of contents there should be a list of the plates and of the text- 
figures, in each case showing their position in the volume. 
When authors are supplied with separate copies of their papers the original 
pagination must be maintained, and in such copies, not only on their covers, must 
be printed the name of the publication, which may be abbreviated, and the 
volume, part, and date (month and year). As copies of papers may be cut out of 
a volume it is an excellent plan, now adopted in the ‘Transactions of the Hert- 
fordshire Natural History Society,’ to print in small type, at the end of each 
paper, on the bottom of the page, the above particulars, which need not occupy 
more than one line and look best in italics. If that be done, what a bibliographer 
requires to know cannot be lost. 
There are very few of these conditions, I may perhaps call them rules, which 
are generally observed in the publications of our smaller natural history societies. 
