W. DENISON ROEBUCK. F.L.S. : PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 7 
the members at the Annual Meeting, and we are patriotic enough 
Yorkshiremen to make it also a point that our President should 
be a Yorkshireman by birth, residence, association, or some 
connection. 
In this capacity we have had a series of Presidents who 
have rendered service to Yorkshire science in various ways. 
Mr. T. B. Oldfield, of Heckmondwike, was the first president 
appointed by the West Riding Consolidated Society, and he was 
succeeded by Mr. Joseph Wainwright, an Alderman of Wake- 
field. At the time of our re-organisation, the chair was 
occupied by our beloved friend, the Rev. W. Fowler. 
He was succeeded by Dr. Clifton Sorby, of the city in which 
we are now met. Then in succession we had the veteran palseo- 
botanist, Professor W. C. Williamson ; the author of the standard 
flora of North Yorkshire in Mr. John Gilbert Baker ; an entomolo- 
gist of the first rank in Lord Walsingham ; a distinguished micro- 
scopist in the Rev.W.H. Dallinger; an ornithologist in Sir Ralph 
Payne-Gallwey ; the investigator of the Yorksh're Jurassic rocks 
in Mr. W. H. Hudleston ; the author of the standard work 
on the birds of Europe in Mr. H. E. Dresser ; the botanical 
Bishop of Wakefield (Dr. Walsham How) ; the author of the 
great work on the Yorkshire Coalfield in Professor A. H. Gree ■ ; 
our own old and staunch friend and companion, and author of a 
standard book on British mosses, in Mr. C. P. Hobkirk; the 
author of many standard bird-monographs in Mr. Henry 
Seebohm ; the investigator of the Knoll-reefs of Craven in Mr. 
R. H. Tiddeman ; the distinguished author of the standard work 
on British Mosses, which it is a pleasure to know is being 
completed, in Dr. Robert Braithwaite; the author of the birds 
of the Humber District in Mr. John Cordeaux ; an eminent 
palaeontologist in Professor W. Boyd Dawkins; a distinguished 
physiologist in Sir Michael Foster; our leading authority on 
desmids and other algae in Mr. William West ; the author of the 
recently completed list of Yorkshire Lepidoptera in Mr. G. T. 
Porritt ; and the leader of the new and brilliant school of glacial 
geologists in my immediate predecessor, Mr. Percy F. Kendall. 
I have not the slightest diffidence in referring to these, my 
distinguished predecessors, knowing well that my own election 
was intended as a special mark of appreciation of long service as 
secretary, and will not, at least I hope not, serve as a precedent 
for lowering the status of an office intended for the leading 
Yorkshiremen in our various branches of research. 
The final point in regard to the re-organisation was with 
reference to the publication of results, for which end our Transac- 
tions were established, of which we have published to the present 
twenty-nine parts dealing with most of the subjects of our 
investigation. 
This, and the publication of our monthly journal, The 
Naturalist," are the end and aim of our whole existence. 
