54 
INDUCTION. 
must help us by becoming subscribers in proportion as we 
help them by becoming publishers. It ought to be clearly 
and fully stated on behalf of the publishers, my co-editor, and 
myself, that there is no question of private profit in the 
ownership of the “ Midland Naturalist.” The only payments 
made on account of the magazine are towards the expenses 
of printing it; and an increase in the receipts from its 
publication would simply mean more money capable of being 
expended in the work of printing, illustrating, and distri¬ 
buting. 
I would like local natural history societies to remember 
that they perform only one half of their functions if they live 
to themselves alone ; that their labours to be of real value 
should also be communicated to others. A few of the 
societies constituting the Union, the more powerful and 
wealthy of them, recognise this, and are able to recognise this, 
by the publication of separate Transactions at more or less 
frequent intervals. The publication of Transactions is, how¬ 
ever, an expensive matter, and the circulation very restricted; 
hence the great bulk of local societies, face to face as they are 
with small membership and low subscriptions, either do not 
publish at all, or publish at long intervals. 
Now it is not too much to say that this tends strongly to 
kill local scientific activity. So long as a society is content 
to carry out the functions, very useful in their way, of a 
lecturing club, at which papers on general topics are read to 
such members as choose to attend the meetings, the method 
of non-publication will no doubt amply serve its purpose. But 
this alone is not the object with which local societies are 
founded. Nor is it fair to ask that labour of any value should 
be undertaken by a member for the very small return that the 
meeting can give him. With the judicious use of the columns 
of the “ Midland Naturalist” the writer of a paper addresses 
himself to a far larger audience than could possibly come 
within the walls of a room many times exceeding the size of 
that in which the meetings of a society are usually held, and 
addresses them for the time future as well as the time present. 
I need hardly add that he does not thus in any way preclude, 
but rather facilitates, the subsequent publication of the paper, 
either in a separate form, or as part of the occasional Transac¬ 
tions of the society. Further, just as the publication of a 
paper enlarges the audience to which it is addressed, so the 
readers of the ‘‘Midland Naturalist,” to whatever local society 
they may happen to belong, are placed upon a footing as it 
were of partial membership of all other societies from which 
contributions are received. 
