4 NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 



" During the last Session the meetings of the Society have been held, 

 as before, at the Royal Irish Academy House, Dawson- street, and for 

 that kind accommodation your Council begs, in the name of the Society, 

 to tender its best thanks to the Council of the Academy. 



" The Museum still remains in your Treasurer's kind and safe 

 custody. The donations have, however, been but few, and chiefly con- 

 fined to birds. 



" The state of the funds of the Society will appear from the Trea- 

 surer's Eeport. The reserve fund in the Treasurer's hands last year 

 has been, by a resolution of the Society, and in accordance with the 

 rule on the subject, invested in the New Three per Cents. 



" In returning into your hands the trust confided to it during the 

 past year, your Council would, ere it does so, congratulate the Society 

 on being in what must be regarded as a prosperous and vigorous condi- 

 tion, with a good balance in its favour, even after all liabilities are dis- 

 charged. This satisfactory financial condition is mainly due to the 

 Society having been for a few years free from the incubus of a heavy 

 rent, the principal item of expenditure being that for printing the 

 * Proceedings,' a department which your Council thinks should be effi- 

 ciently carried on, in order that original scientific communications may 

 be attracted to this Society, and its scientific status thereby main- 

 tained. It is much to be regretted that the numerical strength and 

 consequent pecuniary ability of the Society do not admit of its assem- 

 bling in its own apartments ; at least, a place sufficiently moderate for 

 the limited resources of the Society has not been met with, nor does 

 your Council see that there is any immediate probability of its being 

 acquired. 



" In concluding this short Eeport, your Council would venture 

 briefly to put before the Members in general two important duties in- 

 cumbent on them: the first, is to work, whence will emanate the 

 scientific pabulum without which the Society would pine ; the second, 

 is to get new Members, whence will be augmented the pecuniary sup- 

 port without which the Society itself would worse than languish, and 

 the scientific element become attracted away to other quarters. Let 

 the Members, each in his vocation, and in his separate walk, carry 

 out these duties, one or both, as energetically and heartily as he 

 can, and the Natural History Society of Dublin must and will continue 

 to flourish." 



The foregoing Eeport was unanimously adopted. 



The Treasurer then submitted his Eeport, showing a balance in the 

 Society's favour of £49 Is. 4d. ; also £8 to bemadded to the Eeserve 

 Fund, already consisting of £83 135. 4d., New Three per Cents. 



The Ballot then closed, when the Scrutineers, Dr. Bennett and Mr. 

 Johnston, reported the following gentlemen elected to serve for the en- 

 suing year : — 



