176 MIDLAND UNION OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
to promote the study of natural history, especially that of the 
Midland district.” To this may be added that it may be of great 
utility as a medium for the publication, at a diminished cost, of 
papers, records, and maps, i.e ., a publishing Union. To secure the 
practical utility of the Union it is essential to obtain the services of 
gentlemen who can devote a very large portion of their time to the 
duties for several consecutive years. Those duties must necessarily 
be onerous, as only a most determined effort and constant corre¬ 
spondence with, seeing, and generally keeping in touch with, the 
active members of the local societies would be productive of good 
results. The honorary secretaries should have some general 
scientific knowledge, not confined to one branch, be good organisers, 
young, and, as the natural centre has been and will be Birmingham, 
should reside in or quite close to that city, so that they can keep in 
constant communication with the more prominent members of the 
executive committee. 
(4.) Is there any prospect of more societies joining the Union, 
and so increasing the funds and helpers to carry on the work ? A 
determined effort was made to get more societies to join the Union, 
more especially by Messrs. R W. Chase and W. R Hughes. The 
officers of many societies were seen, but only the Birmingham 
Sociologic Circle joined. 
It was pointed out that the questions for the council to decide 
were two in number. 
1st.—Was there sufficient interest felt in the Midland Union by 
its constituent societies to make it desirable that the council should 
recommend its continuance ; and 
2nd.—If the Union be continued, shall the endeavour be made 
to keep up the “ Midland Naturalist ” as its journal ? 
In connection with the question as to the “ Midland Naturalist,” 
and the possibility of continuing its publication if the present 
publishers ceased to print it, the Secretary read a minute of a 
council meeting held in 1878, by which all rights in the “ Midland 
Naturalist” were vested in the publishers, Messrs. Wright, Dain, 
Peyton, and Co., on condition that they took entire pecuniary 
responsibility for the journal. 
August, 1898. 
