Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London - University Library

3° PEOCEEDINGS OF THE
Only more profound than my appreciation is the misgiving lest
my discharge of the multifarious and often difficult duties attaching
to this Chair may have failed to justify that confidence. It is
no extenuation to say that I have endeavoui-ed to discharge those
duties to the utmost of my ability, ever having regard to the best
traditions and the highest interests of the Society ; that is the
least that a President can do. Whatever measure of success may
have attended my efforts is to be attributed to the ready and
effective help of my colleagues in office, whose co-operation and
sympathy have always been at my service, and to the loyal support
ever extended to me by the Council. If I am to-day in a
position to hand on to my successor, unimpaired, the trust committed
to my charge, it is because my ambition to do so has been
directed aright by experience more extensive and judgment more
matui'e than I could myself command.
The Peesident then addressed Dr. Gunther, and in presenting
the Linnean Medal, specified the considerations that had moved
the Council to make this aw^ard.
The Pkesident said :
—
" Dr. Giinther,— Each succeeding Session of our Society brings
with it no event more interesting than the pi^esentation of the
Linnean Medal to whomsoever the Society delights to honour.
But this year the event is of quite unusual interest, inasmuch as
the attendant circumstances are altogether unprecedented. For
the first time in our annals a Fellow receives our Medal who has
already presented it, and a President presents it to his immediate
predecessor in this Chair.
" So well are you personally known, so familiar are your
scientific achievements, to the great majority of the Fellows, that
any words of introduction or commendation from me might well
be regarded as altogether uncalled for, were it not that the regulations
insist upon a statement of the grounds upon which the
Medal has been awarded. Let me say, then, that our award has
been made in recognition of your attainments as a Zoologist, and,
more particularly, of your profound and probably unparalleled knowledge
of the Lower Vertebrates, as exhibited in such works as the
monumental catalogue prepared by you of the Fishes in the collections
of the British Museum, in such volumes as those on the
Giant Tortoises and on the Eeptiles of British India, and in many
remarkable memoirs such as those on Hatteria and on Ceratodus.
" Whilst this is the all-sufficient justification of the action of
the Council, I am free to admit that where our admiration for you
as a man of science led the way, our regard for you as an old and
ti'ied Fellow and former President closely followed. It is with
this combination of sentiments that I ask your acceptance of the
Linnean Medal that it is my privilege to present."