38 History of the wSoctetv. 



memorate our Jubilee would be to publish an Index to the 

 whole of our Society's Transactions since its institution in 

 1862. The cost of the production of this volume will naturally 

 be A^ery heavy, and I do not anticipate that there will be any 

 monetary return from its publication. The expenses of this 

 Index have, however, been guaranteed privately. As regards 

 its acceptability, I would simply say that our Transactions 

 are practically useless without it. Having- had to go through 

 the many volumes for the purpose of compiling this short 

 history, I have again and again been struck no less by the 

 excellence and value of some of the papers than by the hope- 

 less task it would be to students to refer to our past Trans- 

 actions as " books of reference." In the future, however, 

 with the commemorative volume at their elbows, they will be 

 able to appreciate and make use of the contributions to Science 

 made by our predecessors. Some idea of the magnitude of 

 the task of the compilation of this Index may be gathered from 

 the statement that in the section devoted to Vertebrates alone 

 some five hundred species are mentioned in the Transactions, 

 to which there are upwards of three thousand references. 



It has never been the practice of the Society to show as 

 credit the stock in hand of their printed publications. There 

 is not as much demand for these as might be wished, and their 

 value being therefore difficult to estimate, it still seems best 

 to eliminate this item from our balance sheet. With these 

 remarks, I am delighted to be able to say that we are in the 

 happy position of being entirely up to date as regards the 

 printing of our Transactions, and that the cost of their pub- 

 lication has been met. To sum up — we have no debts, sub- 

 scriptions amounting to some ;^3 have yet to be paid our 

 Treasurer, and we are able to show a balance in hand of 

 ^"6 8s, which is a slightly larger sum than the average for 

 the last five years. 



It would ill-become me to boast as to the present con- 

 dition of our Society, for I tremble when I remember the 

 adage, " Pride comes before a fall;" but I may be allowed 

 to say how promising are our prospects. With upwards of 

 four hundred and ninety members, a greater number than we 



