l62 



jVo/cs and Co?}U)icuLs. 



the matter to the serious notice of all secretaries of societies, 

 editors of transactions, and others who are in any way respon- 

 sible for the various publications that are now issued in such 

 numbers. With regard to the Yorkshire vSociety, we have 

 received other communications, one from a gentleman who has 

 had much experience in these matters, and was at one time 

 connected with this journal. He writes that he was glad to see 

 our protest ' against the continued misdating of the Proceedings 

 of that Society/ which is a constant source of irritation to 

 anyone who respects the properties of journalism, a stumbling 

 block to the bibliographer, and a possible source of grave 

 injustice to an author. The editor's reply betrays an astonish- 

 ing naivete. We do not expect /z^'s authors to complain of 

 their papers being anti-dated, but the authors who contribute 

 to other journals which are correctly dated.' It is possible that 

 Dr. Dwerryhouse was not aware of the complaints made to his 

 predecessor. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION REPORT (LEICESTER MEETING). 



Just as we were going to press with our April number, we 

 received the Report of the British Association for the 

 Leicester Meeting, which was held in July- August last. 

 It is a much smaller volume than usual, though of course, as 

 we are accustomed to find, it is an excellent summary of a 

 year's progress in science. But why it should take eight months 

 to produce the volume, seeing that nearly the whole of it was 

 in type at the Leicester meeting, we cannot possibly under- 

 stand. Most of the first section of the Report (cxxix pp.) 

 is reprinted from the previous report. The various presidential 

 addresses ; reports of the Committees of research ; abstracts of 

 papers read ; and even the list of members, were in the hands 

 of the members last mid-summer. The various items required 

 putting in order, printing, and indexing, (and the index is a 

 very good one) ; but, surely this could have been done before 

 this ? On account of the unusually early date of the Leicester 

 meeting, one had hoped that for once the Report would have 

 appeared in the same year as the meeting. Instead of which 

 it seems that the earher in the year in which the meeting is 

 held, the later the date upon which the volume appears. It 

 goes without saying that the report, in accordance with the 

 delay in wdiich it is issued, decreases in value, from a scientific 

 point of view. 



Naturalist, 



