90 President' 1 f< Address. 



PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



The President took the chair at 10 a.m., and made the 

 following- remarks : — 



My Dear Colleagues, — On the History of Ornithology 

 there can be little to add, since we have, in the person of 

 Professor Newton, an unrivalled chronicler, whose articles 

 on Ornithology in the ' Dictionary of Birds,' seem to me to 

 embrace the whole of the subject in so complete a manner 

 that they must for ever remain the foundation of ornitho- 

 logical history. I will confess that I had entertained the idea 

 of presenting from this chair an address on the history of 

 ornithology, a subject that has always interested me greatly, 

 but I soon found that the facts I had collected were already 

 set forth in Professor Newton's articles above referred to, and 

 that they were marshalled in such an excellent fashion that 

 I could not hope to add anything of value. 



Nomenclature is a tedious subject, and seldom leads to 

 profitable discussion in a Congress such as ours, where there 

 is abundant promise of serious work to be performed. It is 

 too often the apple of discord, and I shall not throw it among 

 you on the present occasion. 



Since, however, the meeting of this Fourth International 

 Ornithological Congress is being held in London, and in 

 proximity to the Natural History Museum, it has struck me 

 that a few words on the origin and progress of the Bird- 

 Collection in our National Museum might be of some interest 

 to the Members of the Congress. 



Some of you may have seen the volume of the ' History of 

 the Collections in the British Museum ' which appeared in 

 1904, in which were published accounts of the following- 

 Departments, viz. :- — 



Botany, by George Murray, F.R.S., 



Mineralogy, by L. Fletcher, F.R.S., 



Geology, by A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S., and 



Libraries, by B. B. Woodward. 



In the forthcoming second volume will be narrated the 

 history of the Department of Zoology, to which I have 

 contributed the ornithological portion. As this volume will 



