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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Fellow who is not recommended and vouched for by trustworthy 
persons, as having a taste for and a knowledge of either scientific or 
literary subjects ; and having been myself on many occasions a 
member of Council, before which applications for admission come, I 
know that this rule is honestly acted on. 
I do not find that this rule keeps back any whom we would desire 
to welcome within our walls. During the past Session the number 
of Fellows admitted was twenty-five, whereas the average number 
during the four previous years was twenty. 
I am sorry to say, however, that during the past year an unusual 
number of deaths among our members has occurred — one in the 
Honorary class, thirteen in the Ordinary class. 
The Honorary Fellow deceased was Professor von Siebold, who 
died last spring at the age of eighty-one. For the last thirty years 
of his life he was Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy 
in the University of Munich. He is said to have written altogether 
130 scientific, papers, several of which were so appreciated in this 
country, that they were translated into English by Professor Huxley 
and Mr Dallas. Von Siebold was a corresponding member of the 
French Institute, and a honorary member of the Royal Society of 
London. 
Of the deceased Fellows in our Ordinary class, the first name to 
be mentioned is that of Sir Alexander Grant , the distinguished 
Principal of Edinburgh University, who died on 1st December 1884. 
He was the representative of a branch of the Seafield family, and 
inherited a baronetcy which had been conferred in the year 1688. 
Though eminently qualified to take part in the business of our 
Society, especially in the department of literature, Sir Alexander 
Grant’s other important duties too much engrossed his attention, 
to allow him to do more than deliver an address at the commence- 
ment of one of our Sessions, and to give several obituary notices. 
At Oxford University, as a student, he distinguished himself by 
his attainments in classics, philosophy, and general literature, and 
whilst resident there, he brought out the edition of Aristotle’s Ethics, 
with English notes, which at once stamped him as an eminent 
scholar and a man of intellectual power. His first appointment to 
a post of duty was that of Inspector of Schools at Madras. A few 
years afterwards he was elected to the higher position of Professor 
