The Duties of Local Societies

Abstract

IT is undoubtedly the work proper to local natural history societies to study well the productions of their own immediate neighbourhood, to catalogue all the fossils, plants, and animals, and to note any peculiarities regarding them. In the settlement of the great questions still under discussion, much will depend upon their faithfully performing this duty. All naturalists will cordially endorse whatever has been said in regarding such societies from this point of view, and will agree in declaring that it is far better they should be occupied in such labour than in the discussion of theories and abstruse general questions, which are better left to larger and more influential bodies. It is their office to collect facts upon which individual minds may generalise. This of course applies to such bodies in their collective capacity, and not to the members as individuals; it is very probable that such individuals may make use of the facts collected by the society.