730 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1914. 
for in addition to the Affiliated Societies which publish the results of original 
local investigation, there are Associated Societies which need not so publish, 
but must consist of at least fifty members, and have been established not less 
than three years. The Delegate from an Affiliated Society must be a Member 
of the Association, that from an Associated Society may be an Associate, and 
although they had not quite the same privileges, all met on equal terms at the 
Conferences, 
The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks to the Vice-Chairman for 
presiding. 
A Bibliography of the Publications of Local Scientific Societies. 
We venture to place before the Conference some suggestions for a piece of 
work which might be undertaken by the Committee of the Conference, on behalf 
of the British Association, to the great benefit and encouragement of the numerous 
amateur naturalists in the country, and a work which would even be useful to 
students and practical workers in science of higher pretensions. It is that a 
full bibliography of all papers contained in the Transactions and Journals of 
Local Scientific Societies of Great Britain and Ireland should be compiled and 
published. The value of such a work has forcibly suggested itself during the 
collation and binding up of the extensive series of these publications contained 
in the library of the Essex Field Club. It was abundantly evident how much 
information, the result of painstaking research, lies practically buried in these 
Transactions and Journals, information which cannot be obtained from any other 
sources. A classical instance may be mentioned of Mendel’s work lying un- 
known for over thirty years. 
Methods.—Some suggestions as to methods may be put forward. The 
British Association should supply index-slips to each society. The societies 
should undertake to catalogue (under Subjects and Authors) by means of such 
slips, the more important papers and notes which have been published in their 
Journals during the whole course of their existence. In doing this it should be 
borne in mind that even short papers may be of great importance as containing 
local facts or giving suggestions for future work. And the active officers of 
each society would be the best judges of the value of such papers and notes. 
The index-slips should then be forwarded to an expert bibliographer appointed 
by the British Association. 
Each society should also furnish full information as to the titles and mode 
of publication of their Journals and other works published by them, together 
with notification of such libraries as are known to contain these books. 
The bibliography might be published in two forms :— 
(1) Ordinary book form printed on both sides of the paper. 
(2) Slip-index form. 
By means of the second mode of publication each society would be able to 
obtain an index of its own publications separately from the complete biblio- 
graphy. As many societies have acquired extensive libraries by exchange, such 
a bibliography as the one suggested would be an invaluable adjunct to their 
catalogue of publications. Each society whose publications are thus indexed 
might be asked to subscribe for at least one copy of the bibliography, and 
inasmuch as this would serve in many cases as an index catalogue to their own 
libraries, doubtless a very considerable number of individual members would 
also subscribe. And a great number of public libraries, and libraries of 
societies, both here and in America, would also subscribe, so that in all 
probability the publication of the bibliography would pay for itself. 
Although scientific periodicals other than those published by societies have 
been excluded from our scheme, the publishers of important scientific journals 
should be approached in order to see if it would be possible to extend the 
bibliography in this direction, 
We merely put these terse suggestions forward as a basis for future dis- 
cussion. The full working out of the scheme could be elaborated later. But 
we are fully impressed with the importance and interest of the work. 
Wm. Corse, Hon. Secretary and Curator of 
the Essex Museum of Nat. Hist. 
HENRY WHITEHEAD, Assistant Curator. 
