Inaugural Address. 491 



farming in order to join the ranks of the overcrowded 

 professions. 



In England the Liniversity of Cambridge, ever in the 

 van of scientific teaching, has ah'eady institnted courses 

 in biology and chemistry leading to a diploma in agri- 

 cultural science. 



The great secrets of successful work in natural 

 history are perseverance and concentration. In this 

 study, as in every other occupation, it is only the man 

 who keeps steadily at it year after year who ever 

 achieves anything. But concentration is of equal 

 importance. The animal kingdom is such an enor- 

 mously wide field, that unless the energies of the 

 natural historian are confined to one small part of it 

 they are dissipated and wasted. We want to be 

 specialists in this society ; we want not merely those 

 v/ho take a more or less active interest in JSTatural 

 History as a whole, but we want also the special 

 student of insects, the lover of shells, the sportsman 

 who knows all about game birds, and so on. There is 

 no fear that the man who makes a specialty of one 

 branch mil find it dull to listen to the record of the 

 observations of the students of another department. 

 Any honest study of even a small part of the field rouses 

 far more interest in the field as a whole than a hazy and 

 languid study of general zoology. And here perhaps I 

 may make a suggestion or two with regard to our field 

 work. It is one of the great disadvantages of our society 

 that owing to the peculiarity of our Canadian climate, 

 the time when we hold our meetings is just the time 

 when we can do no out-of-doors work. The summer 

 before last I was privileged to take part in some of our 

 excursions, and the defect which struck me most about 



