26 Annual Meeting. 



of this year, and Mr. George Donaldson has rendered valuable 

 clerical assistance during the remainder of the Session. Your 

 Council desire to express their best thanks to the local Press for 

 reports of the various meetings. 



In accordance with the constitution of the Society five 

 members of Council retire from office, four of whom are eligible 

 for re-election, viz. : — Prof. Gregg-Wilson, Prof. FitzGerald, John 

 Horner, and Right Hon. R. Young. 



Mr. Horner presented the financial statament, which was 

 of a satisfactory character. 



The Chairman, in moving the adoption of the report, said 

 the latter indicated that the work submitted to their public 

 meetings last session — whether as regarded variety, interest, or 

 importance — was equal to that done during any of the previous 

 eighty-seven years of the existence of that old Belfast society. 

 Death had again removed several of their members. They 

 deplored the loss of Dr. Charles Sheldon, who, for a lengthened 

 period, was one of the headmasters of the Royal Academical 

 Institution ; Mr. James Stelfox, C.E., who was a keen amateur 

 in microscopic and photographic work, and whose son — Mr. 

 A. W. Stelfox — was now the very efficient secretary of the Belfast 

 Naturalists' Field Club ; and of Mr. S. A. Stewart, who occupied 

 the very foremost place among Irish naturalists, and whose 

 " Flora of the North-East of Ireland " represented thirty years of 

 careful field-work. He was sure they would all be pleased to learn 

 that the negotiations between that society and the Corporation of 

 Belfast, which were most creditable to both parties, were now 

 practically completed. It might be well for him to explain the 

 exact state of affairs. In 1907, that society offered the entire 

 collection in their museum, on loan, to the Corporation of Belfast, 

 and on ist February, 1909, the City Council adopted so much of 

 the Museums and Gymnasiums Act (1891) as related to museums, 

 and they also struck a museum rate of y^ in the ;£ with the view 

 of amalgamating the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical 

 Society's collection with the municipal collection, and of providing 



