70 
ANNUAL REPORT. 
The memorial has produced no direct result with the 
Jubilee Committee ; nor probably did any one of the 
memorialists greatly anticipate such result. But it has set a 
ball rolling which will probably never stop till the Midland 
Counties, with their own special genius, their own special 
wants, and their special racial characteristics, have an 
institution in their midst endowed with the degree-giving 
function. The three counties into which Birmingham and 
its suburbs extends have a population of nearly two and a 
quarter millions—much more than half the population of 
Scotland. The eight counties impinging on these three, and 
forming the outer circle, have a population of another three 
millions. Why should students derived from this dense mass 
of population, taught and trained in its midst, go elsewhere 
for those examinations which are to crown their student 
career ? 
Perhaps it will take years to fulfil the hopes of the 
initiators of this University scheme for the Midland Counties. 
The ball has, however, been started ; and for those amongst 
the readers of the “Midland Naturalist” who take an interest, 
whether for or against the scheme, I can only ask that they 
should purchase for a spare penny the presidential address of 
the Bev. H. W. Crosskey, LL.D., to the Birmingham 
Philosophical Society (CornishBros., Birmingham,publishers), 
and read there, given with an eloquence peculiarly his own, 
the reasons of one of the leading Birmingham educationalists 
in favour of this topmost stone of the Midland system of 
universal education. W. Hillhouse. 
TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL KEPORT 
OF THE 
BIRMINGHAM NATURAL HISTORY AND MICROSCOPICAL 
SOCIETY, 
Presented by the Committee to the Annual Meeting, 
February 1st, 1887. 
The committee in presenting the report for the year 1886 
feel much pleasure in stating that the regular work of the 
Society has been well sustained. The communications made 
to the Society have been both numerous and valuable, and 
the specimens exhibited, whilst they have been very varied, 
have proved both interesting and instructive, many being very 
rare, and a goodly number being new to the district. This 
has been especially the case amongst the more minute forms 
