146 Transactions of the [^SSmSTS! 
The Society was informed in my anniversary address, delivered 
last year, that the Council had decided upon terminating the agree- 
ment for the publication of its proceedings and transactions in the 
' Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science.' In conformity with 
this intention the connection of the Society with that journal ceased 
with the publication of the last October number. 
In devising fresh plans, the following points had to be con- 
sidered : — 
1st. Whether the proceedings and transactions of the Society 
should be issued by themselves, or in connection with similar matter 
derived from other sources. 
2nd. Whether the publication should be monthly instead of 
quarterly, as heretofore. 
3rd. If the Society should hand over its papers and proceedings 
for publication in a journal that was not entirely its own property, 
in what way its legitimate influence and control might be preserved. 
4th. The best means of obtaining for the Society some ad- 
vantage proportionate to the value of the matter it might place 
at the disposal of a publisher, and for its action and influence in 
securing and promoting the sale of ^any publication with which it 
might be connected. 
After much deliberation it was considered that the interest of 
the Society would be best promoted by connecting the publication of 
its own transactions and proceedings with a record of the principal 
microscopical researches laid before other societies, or embodied in 
works not generally accessible. It was also thought desirable that 
the publication should be monthly, as ensuring the speedy communi- 
cation to the scientific world of new facts and discoveries contained 
in papers read before the Society. 
Your President and some members of the Council would have 
preferred that the Society should issue its own proceedings and 
transactions in a handsome form, and without the addition of any 
other matter ; but they did not see their way to dissociate themselves 
entirely from all arrangements that had been made by their pre- 
decessors, and which had been many years in force. 
For a long time the Fellows had been accustomed to receive in 
connection with their own proceedings, microscopical information 
drawn from various sources, and inquiries led your Council to 
believe that any changes involving a diminution of information 
would be repugnant to the wishes of the majority of the Fellows. 
They therefore endeavoured to make arrangements by which the 
Society would be a clear gainer, in the quantity as well as in the 
quality of the matter supphed. 
There was another reason which influenced them in this decision, 
and that was a desire to establish useful and friendly relations with 
other excellent Microscopical Societies, both in the metropolis and 
