ADDRESS. 
Read by the President , Sidney F. Harmer, Sc. IX, F.R.S., to the 
Members of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society, 
at their Thirty-second Annual Meeting, held at the Norwich 
Castle-Museum, March 26th, 1901. 
Ladies and Gentlemen— My first duty to-night is to return to 
you my most hearty thanks for the honour which you have done 
me by electing me as the President of this Society. I feel that 
I am under a special obligation to you because I am not a resident 
in Norwich. You have not only paid me a great compliment by 
not forgetting one who has had very few opportunities of being 
present at your meetings, but you were kind enough to ask me to 
till the Presidential Chair even though you knew that my duties 
in Cambridge would prevent me from being present at several of 
the meetings held during my year of office. The interest which 
I take in my native city has led me to appreciate very highly the 
opportunity of taking office in this Society ; and I have had an 
additional source of satisfaction in succeeding to the chair which 
was occupied by my father rather more than twenty years ago. 
The event of most importance which has taken place during the 
past year is the death of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria. 
The progress of science during her reign is a phenomenon which 
will perhaps never be repeated in the history of the world, and it 
will form one of the most important and interesting subjects to be 
dealt with by the historians of the Victorian Era. The adequate 
consideration of this topic would involve a complete survey of the 
state of the Natural Sciences before 1837, in order to be in a position 
to appreciate the advances which have been made since that date. 
VOL. VII. 
i 
