Presidenfs Address. xvii 



inentioned the matter in their reports of the meeting ; several letters 

 concerning the occurrence of such creatures soon reached Mr. Fisk 

 and myself; and not many months psssed before actual living 

 examples, measuring from four to five feet in length, were received, 

 and sent by Mr. Fisk to England, where they have been duly dis- 

 sected and determined as a new species of the group. 



6. Several of our members have contributed results of their work 

 to European societies and publications, among whom I may mention 

 Mr. Bolus, Mr. Gill, Mr. Gramble, Mr. MacOwan, Mr. Peringuey, Mr. 

 Schunke, and myself. I would call the special attention of members 

 to Mr. Schunke' s paper on " Kaffraria and the Eastern Border Districts 

 of the Cape Colony," illustrated by a very useful map, of which the 

 first part has been published in No. V. of Petermann's '' Mittheilungen " 

 for the current year. 



7. As regards the strength of our muster-roll of members, it is 

 certainly encouraging to find that, notwithstanding the extreme 

 depression of circumstances generally, and the natural result that 

 resignations have been somewhat frequent, our numbers have not 

 decreased during the two years, but there has been even a slight 

 increase. While we have lost two members by death, two by departure 

 from the Colony, and twelve by resignation, we have elected sixteen 

 ordinary and two corresponding members, so that our numerical gain 

 has been two. On looking back, I find that we started in 1877 with 

 78 members, and that our maximum was attained in 1881, when we 

 mustered exactly a hundred, vid. : 86 ordinary and 14 corresponding 

 members. Our present strength is ninety-four, vid. : 74 ordinary and 

 20 corresponding members. Although this number is far below the 

 hopes and anticipations of many of those who co-operated to launch 

 the Society eight years ago, it yet emphatically shows how ill-judged 

 was the prediction of the distinguished Astronomer, who, in declining 

 to join us, sarcastically assigned to the Society an existence of less 

 than two years ! 



8. The death of Sir Bartle Frere, on the 19th May, 1884, must 

 have keenly recalled to very many of us the sense of loss experienced 

 when, in September, 1880, our distinguished founder and first Presi- 

 dent finally quitted the Colony. Of his eminent public services in 

 India and other parts of the Empire I need not speak; they were 

 recognised and rewarded by the Sovereign and by Parliament, and 

 will hold their place in the national records. It is not as the states- 

 man and administrator that Sir Bartle Frere fills so large and so high 

 a place in the memory of this Society, but as the man of '4ight and 

 leading ;" the friend of literature and science; the cordial promoter 

 of every honest effort for progress and improvement ; the student 

 whose wide culture was balanced by an equally wide knowledge of 

 men ; and the most dignified, able, and yet most genial of chairmen ; — 

 it is thus that we delight to remember him ; and it is such memories 

 as these, no less than those which he left behind him as courteous 

 host and high-bred gentleman, which lend a lasting poignancy to our 

 regret for his loss. Sir Bartle's honours were by no means limited to 

 those won in his official career. Both the great English Universities 

 accorded him the honorary Doctorate of Laws ; he was successively 

 Vice-President and President of the Eoyal Geographical Society, and 

 President of the Eoyal Asiatic Society ; he was elected a Fellow of 



