5X11 
PROCEEDINGS OE THE 
Your Secretary, Mr. Hopkinson, resigns, having held the office 
of Secretary and Librarian from the formation of the Society in 
January, 1875, to the end of 1879, and the office of Secretary, 
jointly with Mr. Croft as Secretary for East Herts, from 1879 to 
the present time. The members of the Council, on the occasion of 
Mr. Hopkinson’s retirement from the post of Secretary, desire to 
place on record their high appreciation of his devoted labours on 
behalf of the Society during a period of nine years. They cannot 
hut feel that the present prosperity of the Society is in the main 
due to the careful and efficient manner in which he has performed 
the arduous duties of his office. 
In conclusion the Council has to express the thanks of the Society 
to the Committee of the Watford Public Library for the accommo¬ 
dation afforded for your library and the Watford meetings, and also 
to the members of the Hertford Literary and Scientific Institution 
for the continued free use of their rooms for the Hertford meetings. 
ANNIYEESAEY ADDEESS. 
Py John Evans, E.C.L., LL.H., E.R.S., E.S.A., E.L.S., E.G.S., 
Yice-President. 
I)r. Evans said that he rose to address the Society under circum¬ 
stances of very considerable difficulty, as it was not until the pre¬ 
vious day that he had the faintest idea of taking the place of their 
President, and those who assembled would expect to hear an 
Address of some kind from whoever occupied the chair. 
The Report of the Council had already given the meeting a good 
and accurate resume of what had been the work of the Society during 
the past year, and it appeared to him that it would only be a waste 
of time if he were to try to dwell upon the details already laid 
before them. He might, however, congratulate the Society upon 
the continued success of those who were labouring to investigate 
the natural history of this county, and on the extreme accuracy and 
detail which appear in the various reports published in the ‘ Trans¬ 
actions.’ He was glad also to find that some of those branches of 
natural history which in previous years had hardly received the 
amount of attention to which they were justly entitled, as, for 
instance, the Cryptogamic Elora and the Mollusca of the county, 
were now being diligently investigated, and he hoped would shortly 
be fruitful sources of communications to the Society. He had no 
doubt that during the present year interesting papers would be 
communicated to the Society, and trusted that the attendance at the 
meetings on this side of the county might be larger than had been 
the case on various occasions. It was of course not a fair compli¬ 
ment to the authors of papers if they read them in a room where 
there were very few to listen to them, and he thought it the duty of 
the members who did not contribute papers themselves to attend 
the meetings to hear the papers of other members. 
