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measure our results. Let us ratlier remember liow little many of us ventured 

 to hope for, and contrast it \yitli a success which we did not two years ago 

 venture to expect. I, for one, at any rate, can say that the number and 

 pleasant character of our meetings, the quality of the papers which have been 

 conti'ibuted, and the constant accession of new members which the Institute 

 has enjoyed, are all matters in which I have suffered a pleasing disappoint- 

 ment. We may, I think, assure ourselves now that the premature collapse 

 which some sceptical ci'itics predicted for our association is not in store for us. 

 This fortunate fact must confirm us now in the judgment which led us at the 

 outset to give to the Institute as wide a i-ange as possible, and to open our 

 meetings for contributions from students in every field of human culture. The 

 varied character of the papers which have been read before us have sustained 

 the interest in our proceedings, and I sincerely hope that this variety will 

 always be available to us. On an occasion like this it is not possible to omit 

 a reference to the fact that another great instrument of culture has just been 

 brought into active existence amongst us. I do so the more readily because 

 what it occuT'S to me to say on the subject leads up directly to remarks I have 

 to make on a subject which I have much at heart. We shall, I trust, share 

 in the advantages which must flow from the establishment of the University 

 of Otago. Its professors and its students will, I have no doubt, make their 

 mark in our history. Already one object of our solicitude appears likely to 

 find in the University that faithful guardian which it has so long stood in 

 need of. I allude to the Provincial Museum, which, if common report may 

 be credited, is to share the fortunate destiny of the building in which it has 

 been deposited. I trust that amongst the students at our University there 

 will in future years be always found at least a few ardent natui-alists who will 

 take a pride in assisting to render more complete a collection which has been 

 so nobly begun. As yet our Society has done very little for the Museum. 

 Some of the reasons for this I need not here allude to. If the arrangement I 

 have just spoken of is, in fact, to be made, there is an end to that state of 

 things which made those who were both able and willing to add to the pro- 

 vincial collections hesitate about exjDending their time and laboiir in that 

 direction. But, irrespective of the causes of inactivity to which I allude, I 

 have to confess that the Institute has up to the present time disappointed me 

 in the work it has been able to do for the cause of Natural History. It has 

 found but few naturalists to join its ranks, and has done little to bring even 

 these into that close communication which is so helpful to students in any 

 department of knowledge, and which to the naturalist is all but indispensable. 

 When the Society was formed, I confess that I looked to its becoming chiefly 

 a Naturalists' Club. It leaped at once to something of a far higher character, 

 and in that expansion what I had presumed would be its distinctive feature 



