The President's Address. 
61 
responsible office^ lie merits^ and will have accorded to him, 
I have no doubt, the grateful acknowledgments of the Society. 
The gentleman who was recommended by the Council for 
election to the vacant office would rather not be called upon 
to undertake the duties. In deference to his wishes, another 
gentleman was proposed at the last meeting of the Society, 
in the way the laws require. You will be asked this evening 
to choose one of these gentlemen as your Treasurer, it being 
understood that the election of the gentleman first recom- 
mended by the Council would not be in conformity with his 
wishes. 
Secretary. — You will also be called upon this evening to 
elect a Secretary in the place of the Junior Honorary Secre- 
tary, recently deceased. The gentleman recommended by 
the Council for election to the office they believe to be in an 
especial degree qualified to fill it. The zeal with which he 
has already laboured for the Society justifies them in be- 
lieving that its interests will be materially promoted by his 
election. This, however, is entirely in your hands. 
Members. — The report of the Council shows that we now 
have 817 members, notwithstanding some withdrawals, some 
removals, and loss by death of some of our most valued 
members. 
Professor Quehett. — The late John Quekett was one of the 
founders of this Society. In 1842 he became Honorary 
Secretary, and in that office laboured for nineteen years to 
promote its success. In 1860 he was elected President — an 
office which, from the state of his health at that time, he 
would rather have declined ; and in his address, read from the 
chair last year; he expresses his regret that he had been pre- 
vented by illness from ever occupying the chair at any of the 
ordinary meetings. It was in compliance with his special 
request that he was not re-elected, or in the ordinary course 
he would have been President of the Society at the time of 
his decease. 
He was ^*^the fourth son of the late Mr. Quekett, head 
master of Langport Grammar School, at which institution he 
received his elementary education.^^ His predilection for 
microscopical pursuits was manifested at a very early age; 
for, as stated in a brief memoir in the ' Times/ of the 22nd 
August, 1861, when only sixteen he gave a course of lec- 
tures on microscopical science, illustrated by diagrams and 
a microscope of his own making .... made up of materials 
