268 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 



KEPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 



OF THE 



NATURAL HISTOEY SOCIETY 



READ AT THE ANNIVERSARY MEETING, APRIL 2Gth, 18G6, 

 R. S. NEWALL, ESQ., F.R.A.S., VICE-PRESIDENT, IN THE CHAIR. 



In presenting their report to the Society, the Committee would 

 remark at the outset, that the period to which it refers is some- 

 what longer than usual, upwards of eighteen months having 

 elapsed since the last Anniversary Meeting. The explanation 

 of this lies in the arrangements for cooperation between this 

 Society and the Tyneslde Naturalists' Eleld Club, which ren- 

 der it desirable that the times for holding the annual meetings of 

 the two bodies should be approximated as nearly as may be. 

 The rules of the Society provide that our Anniversary should be 

 held in the Assize-week, in the August of each year, but as the 

 time for holding the Assize Courts has been changed, this is no 

 longer practicable, and as some alteration has become necessary, 

 it has been found productive of less inconvenience to modify 

 our rule than to change the practice of the Eleld Club. In 

 the joint publications of the two Societies the report of the 

 Committee of the Natural History Society should obviously 

 be associated with the address of the President of the Eield 

 Clue, as the two documents taken together afford a fair means 

 of judging the state of Natural History interests in the northern 

 counties. 



Your Committee have but little to remark touching the gene- 

 ral operations of the Society. The number of visitors to the 

 Museum, and the income derived from the payments at the door, 

 slowly but steadily increase. The behaviour of those admitted 



