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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



FACTS ABOUT THE DISTRIBUTION OF SOME 

 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 



The first meeting of the Winter Session was held in the 

 Museum, on 15th November, when the President, Mr. R J. 

 Welch, M.R.I. A., delivered his inaugural address. Mr. Welch 

 said : — In a Natural History Society like ours there is always a 

 large proportion of members who take a general, rather than a 

 special interest in the scientific research which the sectional 

 workers may be carrying on. Yet, many of those members may 

 be glad to hear at times a report of the progress made to date in 

 one or more branches of science. New members, too, are con- 

 stantly coming in, who may be more or less ignorant of what a 

 Club like ours may have been doing in the past, and is still doing, 

 to justify its existence. It is for such members that my remarks 

 to-night are mainly intended. Of its early days and up to the year 

 1887 our late President, Mr. Hugh Robinson, gave a complete 

 resume in his Presidential Address for that year; this is published 

 in full in our Proceedings, which also contain his masterly address 

 a twelvemonth later on the progress which science had made 

 during the years of the Club's existence. Since then Mr. Gray, 

 Mr. Fennell, Mr. Patterson, and other Presidents, have given you 

 details bringing the general history pretty well up to date. This 

 leaves me free, therefore, to choose some fairly definite lines of 

 research work in which many of our members have been engaged 

 in recent years. I feel I cannot do better than select for my 

 subject some facts connected with Geographical Distribution, with 

 special reference to animals and plants found in our own country. 

 I shall not confine myself, however, entirely to the latter, but show 

 you some results obtained also abroad ; and here I may mention 

 the fact that Ireland now is the most thoroughly organised country 



