MEETING OF CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 
buried in these Transactions and Journals, information which cannot be 
obtained from any other sources. A classical instance may be men¬ 
tioned of Mendel’s work lying unknown for over thirty years. 
Methods. —Some suggestions as to methods may be put forward. The 
British Association should supply index-slips to each society. The societies 
should undertake to catalogue (under Subjects and Authors) by means 
of such slips the more important papers and notes which have been 
published in their journals during the whole course of their existence. In 
doing this it should be borne in mind that even short papers may be of 
great importance as containing local facts or giving suggestions for future 
work. And the active officers of each society would be the best judges 
of the value of such papers and notes. The index-slips should then be 
forwarded to an expert bibliographer appointed by the British Association. 
Each society should also furnish full information as to the titles and 
mode of publication of their Journals and other works published by them, 
together with notification of such libraries as are known to contain these 
books. 
The Bibliography might be published in two forms :—■ 
(1) Ordinary book form printed on both sides of the paper. 
(2) Slip-index form. 
By means of the second mode of publication each society would be 
able to obtain an index of its own publications separately from the complete 
bibliography. As many societies have acquired extensive libraries by 
exchange, such a bibliography as the one suggested would be an invaluable 
adjunct to their catalogue of publications. Each society whose publica¬ 
tions are thus indexed might be asked to subscribe for at least one copy 
of the bibliography, and inasmuch as this would serve in many cases as 
an index catalogue to their own libraries, doubtless a very considerable 
number of individual members would also subscribe. And a great number 
of public libraries, and libraries of societies, both here and in America, 
would also subscribe, so that in all probability the publication of the 
bibliography would pay for itself. 
Although scientific periodicals other than those published by societies 
have been excluded from our scheme,-the publishers of important scientific 
journals should be approached in order to see if it would be possible to 
extend the bibliography in this direction. 
We merely put these terse suggestions forward as a basis for future 
discussion. The full working out of the scheme could be elaborated 
later. But we are fully impressed with the importance and interest of 
the work. 
Wm. Cole, 
Hon. Secretary and Curator of the Essex Museum of Nat. Hist. 
Henry Whitehead, 
Assistant Curator. 
