2^0 Address delivered at the sixth and last 



been, of their zeal and ability, we have cause to anticipate a 

 successful result. 



Having now taken a rapid retrospective view of the contri- 

 butions made to zoology, during the year of my presidency, I 

 beg to refer, in an equally rapid sketch, to the general pro- 

 gress of the science since the first institution of our club. In 

 this progress it is our boast to assert that we have held, di- 

 rectly or indirectly, an adequate share. I shall not here revert 

 in detail to the various publications in which we have cooper- 

 ated during that period, and which have already been laid 

 before you from this chair, at your preceding anniversaries. 

 But I cannot avoid pointing out, with some degree, 1 trust, of 

 well founded exultation, the immediate influence we have 

 exerted in the labours of our parent Society. Since the sepa- 

 ration, or rather, I should say, the branching off, of that learned 

 body from the Royal Society, a step which the principle of 

 the division of labour in so wide a field as that of science ren- 

 dered expedient and necessary, the Linnean Transactions 

 have continued to be the repository of the natural science 

 of this country. Now, if we look to the zoological papers 

 published in those Transactions during the last few years, 

 we shall recognise them as emanating, with one or two 

 exceptions, immediately from ourselves. Nor is the number 

 of such zoological contributions disproportioned to that which 

 it might reasonably be expected to be, in comparison with 

 those supplied from the two other kingdoms of nature. On 

 the contrary, we have reason to rejoice in the comparison. 

 The papers in the last number of the Linnean Transactions 

 are exclusively zoological. To the pages also of the Zoolo- 

 gical Journal, a periodical work, established as subsidiary 

 to the Transactions, for the purpose of bringing out such 

 papers as did not bear the high finish or importance adapted 

 to the parent work, and such likewise as required a more 

 speedy publication than the latter could promise, this club has 

 been a zealous contributor. That work, in fact, has been 

 supported exclusively by the members of this body, or by their 

 friends who have written for it under their influence. 



It is not, however, to the number of the works contributed 

 to zoology during the last few years, that I appeal as a test of 

 the advance of the science, but to the general spirit in which 

 they have been conceived and executed. The philosophic 

 enquirer, who traces out the progressive march of this delight- 

 ful branch of knowledge, will at once perceive that the days of 

 compilers have gone by, and the days of original thinkers have 

 risen in their place. He will see, that even in the first neces- 

 sary steps of our science, in the recording of facts and the 



