PROCEEDINGS OE THE 



much to oui* pecuniary reserve. We have, however, kept our bills 

 paid off even more closely than usual, and duly invested the £100 

 presented to the Society by the executors of the late Sir William 

 J. Hooker, carrying our funded property to a total of £1400. 

 We commence also the new year with a larger cash balance in 

 hand than usual. 



I last year expressed a hope that some means might be found for 

 establishing a closer connexion between the Linnean Society as 

 the head of biological science in this country, and special societies 

 established for the cultivation of particular branches of it. I trust 

 that the step which has been taken in this direction may lead to 

 successful results, arrangements having been made, by which the 

 Zoological Society has been allowed during the next Session to 

 hold its Scientific Meetings in our rooms, on the Thursdays alter- 

 nating with our own. A nearly similar application, since made by 

 the Entomological Society, has been favourably entertained by 

 the Council ; but the details are stiU under consideration. 



The number of Fellows elected during the year has been greater 

 than usual; but our losses have been severe, imposing a heavy 

 task on our Secretary in those interesting obituary notices which 

 he is accustomed to lay before you. I have no desire to antici- 

 pate these in any respect ; but, from personal feeling, I cannot 

 refrain from alluding to the blank left by the death of the two 

 eminent men with whom I had for so long been on terms of the 

 most intimate friendship, and to whom I owe so much. Sir Wil- 

 liam Jackson Hooker and Dr. Lindley, the one for forty-two, the 

 other for thirty-nine years had been more or less connected with 

 my career ; for there is not one of my botanical works or publica- 

 tions in which I have not benefitted by that assistance, advice, or 

 encouragement they were always ready to bestow upon all contri- 

 l)utors to the science they both so zealously pursued. They are 

 also ever present to my mind as the last of the chief actors in 

 bringing to a successful conclusion that second great revolution 

 in the science of botany, nearly the whole course of which it has 

 been my fate to witness. Half a century back, when first I en- 

 tered upon the study of plants, the first and greatest revolution 

 in natural science, the reduction to order of the primitive chaos 

 by the establishment of the Linna?an genera, species, and binomial 

 nomenclature, had for some time been fully accomplished. But the 

 benefits derived from this organization were so keenly felt, its final 

 triumpli over the violent opposition it had met with from various 

 quarters so strong iu the recollection of botanists, that any at- 



