PROCEEDINGS-PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. XXIX 
important, there have been nine, viz. :—for the first two years, Mr. 
John Bruce; followed by Messrs. John Henderson, James Henderson, 
R. Thomson, and R. Keay, who each held office for one year; then 
Messrs. Melville Jameson, junr., and James Duncan, who each acted 
for two years; followed for seven years by Mr. John M‘Gregor, who 
was succeeded by our present Treasurer, Mr. John Stewart, who, 
we hope, will, like our Secretary, long continue to act. To all these 
gentlemen, both Secretaries and Treasurers, the Society owes a deep 
debt of gratitude. The Presidents have not been so numerous, 
numbering only four. Up to the fifth year, and again since the 
eighteenth, I have had the honour to fill the chair; in the sixth and 
seventh and sixteenth and seventeenth years, Colonel Drummond 
Hay was President; from the eighth to the thirteenth, Sir T. 
Moncreiffe; and in the fourteenth and fifteenth, Professor James 
Geikie. 
To conclude the numerical statistics, our Museum now contains 
about 20,000 specimens, and our Library nearly 600 volumes, so 
that the resolution adopted in 1867 of forming a Library and Museum 
has been well carried out. 
It makes rather an interesting study to trace the gradual develop¬ 
ment of the aims and objects of the Society, for it must be remem¬ 
bered that not even the most ambitious or imaginative of the founders 
anticipated for it the position it now occupies. In fact, the Society 
as the “ Perthshire Society of Natural Science,” very nearly never 
came into existence at all, since at some of the preliminary meetings 
there was a discussion as to whether the name should not be the 
“Perth Naturalists’ Field Club,” or some such title, and the pro¬ 
gramme limited to meetings and excursions. Though, however, the 
more aspiring name and scheme were adopted, for the first year or 
two the Society was not much more than a Field Club, holding 
meetings and excursions, but having no home of its own. The first 
decided development was the taking of a room in the Kirkside for 
a library—a queer, cold little room it was, heated, or rather attempted 
to be heated, by a gas stove, which on one occasion was accidentally 
left burning for, I think, a month. From this circumstance you may 
see that the library was not much frequented. The fourth year 
(1870-71) saw another development, for we then took a lease of the 
rooms in St. Ann’s Lane that served for our home for eleven years. 
When we had fitted these rooms up with shelves, and put some cases 
in it, we were very proud of ourselves and well satisfied, little think¬ 
ing what the future had in store for us. In 1871 one of the most 
ambitious steps that the Society has ever taken was made—namely, 
the institution of a Magazine, not limited to its own district, but for 
all Scotland. Looking back now at the position we then occupied, 
I cannot help wondering at our audacity, and still more at the success 
which crowned it. Though the Scottish Naturalist passed out of 
the possession of the Society in 1878, it still continues to exist, and 
is widely known. Whilst the views and aims of the Society con¬ 
tinued gradually to enlarge, no further striking development took 
place till about the ninth year, when the members began to think 
seriously that more commodious premises should be obtained. Not 
