﻿PEOCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



ROYAL PHYSICAL SOCIETY. 



SESSION CXXXVI. 



At the opening meeting, held on Monday, 22nd October 

 1906, the retiring President, Mr William Evans, F.E.A., 

 E.RS.E., delivered the following address on " Our Present 

 Knowledge of the Fauna of the Forth Area." 



Gentlemen, — The question which I am going to ask, and 

 in a manner attempt to answer, this evening is. What pro- 

 gress has been made in the investigation of the Fauna of the 

 Forth Area ? The answer will, perhaps, best be given in the 

 form of a statement of what has been done in each group up 

 to the present time. But first let me indulge in a few 

 prefatory remarks of a general nature. 



No apology need be made for bringing this subject before 

 the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, for, as its Pro- 

 ceedings amply testify, this Society more than any other 

 has been, and still is, actively associated with the investi- 

 gation of the local fauna. When the Wernerian Natural 

 History Society — by whose members so many of the 

 pioneer observations in this matter were made — was dis- 

 solved, its zoological (and geological) section was in 1858 

 incorporated with the Eoyal Physical, at whose meetings 

 zoology in its local, as well as in its wider aspects has ever 

 since occupied a prominent place. For a time, too, our 

 Society annually appointed committees on " Marine 

 Zoology " and " Entomology," for the purpose of in- 

 vestigating these branches of the natural history of this 

 neighbourhood ; and it is a fact that the chief workers at 

 the fauna of the district have, with scarcely an exception, 

 been at some period of their careers either Fellows of this, 

 or members of the Wernerian Society. Thus our Proceedings 

 and the Memoirs of the incorporated Society are singularly 



VOL. XVII. A 



