PROCEEDINGS. 
557 
side as well as from the purely classificatory. In fact, the botanists have 
been so strong among us that they have formed a section of the Society 
which has held independent meetings. Of late years the number of 
original announcements and discoveries in mammalogy and ornithology 
has been quite a feature of our meetings. In this and in the question of 
the geographic distribution of life in North America Dr. Merriam has 
been most prominent. I may say also, incidentally, that entomology has 
not been neglected. Another feature of the meetings has been the amount 
of labor given to the history of the beginnings of natural history in 
America, most elaborately and interestingly set forth by Professor Goode 
in his two annual addresses. The subject of taxonomy has been fre¬ 
quently dealt with, and by none more ably than by Dr. Gill, who made 
this and the principles of zoogeography the subjects of his annual ad¬ 
dresses. 
It goes almost without saying that the work of the Biological Society, 
covering a period since Darwin’s death, so pregnant with discussion on 
the origin and development of life upon our planet, has been strongly 
evolutional. The derivative origin of existing forms has not only been 
persistently pressed, argued, and exemplified by original observations, 
but has had a most worthy exposition in the several remarkable papers 
and the presidential addresses by Professor Ward. Our first volume of 
proceedings contains also the papers read at a special Darwin memorial 
meeting. 
In short, and not to weary you, the Society has found in the exchange 
of the experiences, discoveries, and opinions of the many different special¬ 
ists who are doing original work connected with the Government the 
fullest justification for its existence, and has proved a worthy scion of a 
worthy parent. I recollect very well in the earlier meetings of the Philo¬ 
sophical Society, before Professor Henry had left us, that, as a sort of reac¬ 
tion from the rather heavy proceedings, some of us were in the habit of 
repairing to a certain restaurant in the neighborhood of the old Army 
Medical Museum and continuing the session in a less formal way over a 
glass of beer or a plate of oysters. This social and gastronomic phase of 
the meetings was both beneficial and enjoyable, and there is a growing 
feeling on the part of members of the Biological Society that perhaps 
there is at the present time a need of some such feature, an after-meeting 
social stimulus, to bring members more closely together and make them 
better acquainted ; for I think it is true of us, as it is of other societies, 
that the younger members are in this way more rapidly made to feel at 
home and to join in the actual work of the Society. The want is more 
felt now that we meet in the assembly hall of the Cosmos Club than it 
was when we met in the lecture-room of the National Museum, because 
some of the members of the Society who are not members of the Club feel 
a certain constraint which would be removed in the manner suggested. 
Mallock’s telling mot in “The New Republic” has often been quoted, 
to the effect that whether life is worth living depends upon the liver; and 
I may say in conclusion, Mr. President, that while our mother Society 
73-Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 12. 
