SESSION 1910-1911. 
lxix 
First Meeting. 
The Report of the Corresponding Societies Committee 
recommended the addition of two .Societies to the list of 
Affiliated and two to that of Associated Societies, and that one 
Society, having ceased publishing, be removed from the rank of 
an Affiliated to that of an Associated Society. Two Societies, 
having ceased to exist, w T ere removed from the list, which now 
comprises 82 Affiliated and 38 Associated Societies. 
The Chairman delivered an Address on “ Some Methods of 
Optical Projection.” 
The object of the Address was to introduce to the Corresponding 
Societies a method by which objects could be shown on the 
screen by reflected instead of by refracted light, or in other 
words how opaque objects could be shown in place of trans¬ 
parencies. Dr. Anderson recounted his experiments to devise 
a lantern for this purpose, and gave demonstrations with his 
perfected instrument, showing on the screen small fossils and 
other opaque objects. 
The lantern is described and figured in the ‘ Report of the 
British Association’ for 1910, pp. 314-315. 
Mr. F. Balfour Browne then opened a discussion on 
“ Systematic Recording of Captures.” 
Commencing by moving the resolution “ That a Committee of 
Biologists be formed to recommend the adoption of a definite 
system on which collectors should record their captures,” he 
said that “ his aim was to make the work of the collector more 
capable of assimilation by those who study distribution in the 
British Islands. ... If all naturalists would adopt a uniform 
system of recording the results of their collecting, a great deal of 
trouble would be saved to the student of distribution.” 
He then spoke of the various attempts which have already 
been made to organize a system, such as H. C. Watson’s 
Counties and Yice-counties, generally adopted for G-reat Britain, 
and Babington’s, McNab’s, and Praeger’s modifications of that 
system applied to Ireland. 
Mr. P. Ewing, of Glasgow, related his experience of various 
systems while cataloguing the native plants of the Watsonian 
vice-counties forming the west of Scotland. He had found the 
divisions of Harvie-Brown’s naturalists’ map too large, and 
division by squares unworkable in a mountainous country. 
Since the visit of the British Association to Glasgow in 1901 
a great stimulus had been given to the work of recording species. 
The Clyde drainage area had been taken as a basis, and this had 
stood the test of time much better than artificial systems. The 
side of a stream or of a watershed could always be determined, 
and the localization was definite enough and not too clear to 
aid the extermination of our rarer species. 
Mr. T. Sheppard, of Hull, favoured the present Watsonian 
division into counties and vice-counties, and thought that any 
alteration would cause confusion. 
