125 
ANNUAL MEETING AND CONVERSAZIONE. 
HE Annual Meeting and Conversazione of the Society 
was held at 20, Hanover Square, W., on Wednesday, 
May 31, the President, the Right Hon. Sir John 
Lubbock, being in the Chair. 
The Annual Report being taken as read, the Chairman, after 
a few remarks, moved its adoption. 
Rev. Professor Henslow said he had great pleasure in 
seconding the adoption of the Report. With regard to Nature 
Notes, he said he saw a great improvement in it under Professor 
Boulger’s guidance. With reference to the New Forest, he did 
not know much himself ; but from w'hat the Chairman had told 
them, it seemed necessary that there should be some legislation 
with regard to the matter ; and if he (the Chairman) could get 
Parliament to do anything on the lines suggested everyone 
would be grateful to him. As regards the so-called ospreys, it 
was strange that they could continue so long in fashion after 
there had been so much discussion about them by various 
societies and in the newspapers, and he wondered if there was 
not any means of getting the Court and the higher classes of 
the nation to help them in this matter. If they could be gained 
over, perhaps then the fashion could be changed. He had 
lately come from Ealing, and he could assure them that the 
birds in his garden there had always a good time : he had had 
wood pigeons building in the same tree for years, and had had 
gold-crested wrens and many others among his visitors. Now 
that he had come to London he should take the greatest care 
that the birds that came to his garden should have as good a 
time as at Ealing. 
The Report was then unanimously adopted. 
Letters were read from Sir Edward Grey, Lord Stamford 
and Mr. Bryce expressing their sympathy with the Society and 
their regret at not being able to be present. 
Mr. Macpherson moved the election of the Officers. 
Professor Boulger seconded Mr. Macpherson’s proposal, and 
went on to say that he was sometimes asked what was the scope 
of the Selborne Society, and all he could say was that if any one 
would take a year’s trial at compressing the work of the Society 
into the columns of a twenty-page magazine, they would soon find 
out what the scope was, and his difficulty was to get everything 
into the very limited space at his command. He was very glad 
to feel that he was so ably supported by such a number of 
contributors, but he had to appeal to the mercy of some of 
them, because he had a number of MSS. in hand and kept 
getting urgent letters asking if they had been received and when 
they would appear ; whilst, unfortunately, he could only print 
twenty pages of matter in twenty pages, and so these MSS. had 
to wait, although it went very much against the grain with him 
