238 



The Thirty -Seventh Annual Meeting. 



remembrance by the Society as the author of " The Flowering- Plants 

 of Wilts j with Sketches of the Physical Geography and Climate of 

 the County " — the most complete work we have on Wiltshire botany. 

 Mr. Preston was for many years our Local Secretary at Marlborough, 

 where he had done much to advance the study of natural history, 

 not only in our own county, but in the country at large, by his 

 lectures at the College. It may be observed that, in the preface to 

 his book, Mr. Preston bears testimony to the value of earlier work 

 in the same direction, the results of which have been recorded in our 

 Magazine. We regret his loss, and wish him well in his new home. 



" Such losses should stimulate us to fresh exertions, not only to 

 add to our numbers, which have never yet quite reached four hundred, 

 though we think that in a large county like ours this might be 

 achieved with a little exertion on the part of the Local Secretaries 

 and of our Members, scattered as they are in all parts of the county, 

 but also to maintain the high repute of our Society, which cannot 

 by any means yet be said to have fulfilled its mission or to have 

 exhausted the archseological and natural history of a county second 

 to none in its resources for research. 



"Such thoughts are forced upon our mind all the more keenly 

 when we are called upon to record our profound regret at the with- 

 drawal of the Rev. A. C. Smith, owing to failing health, from the 

 post of Honorary Secretary and Editor of the Magazine — a post the 

 duties of which he has fulfilled, not only to the entire satisfaction 

 of every Member of the Society since the year 1857, but with a 

 courtesy and affability which has endeared him to all of us. The 

 Committee has already passed a resolution upon this subject, which 

 will presently be put to this Meeting, and which will doubtless be 

 carried with acclamation. The Rev. Edward Hungerford Goddard 

 has been provisionally elected by the Committee (under Rule IX.) 

 to fill Mr. Smith's place, and a resolution appointing him will be 

 submitted to this Meeting. 



" As to finance, an account of receipts and disbursements was 

 published with the Magazine issued this month. The apparent 

 falling off in the amount of subscriptions received can be accounted 

 for by the fact that in the year ending 1888 a considerable amount 



