Gentlemen,—Before commencing my Address, I trust you will allow me, as is usual on such occasions, to pay a tribute to the memory of two distinguished Members of our Society who died during the past session—Thomas Davidson, an Honorary Fellow, and Alexander Croall of Stirling, an Associate, of our Society. In Thomas Davidson our Society loses one of its best friends. Born and educated in Edinburgh, everything pertaining to his native land had the strongest hold upon his affection. As he himself wrote me in January 1883, ‶I always wish to be considered as a Scottish Geologist and Palaeontologist, as I was born at 8 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, and all my relations are Scotch.″ I had mentioned to him that I begged the details of his life for a series of sketches of great geologists I proposed writing. He sent these details, adding, ‶If you do honour me by a notice in your own words, it will please me much as coming from the pen of one of my own countrymen.″ Alas, little did I then think that my first public notice of him would be this record of his death! My friendship with Thomas Davidson (with whom I have ever since had constant correspondence) began in 1875, when, as Honorary-Secretary of our Society, I went to Brighton, by request of the Society’s Lothians and Fife Palaeontological Committee, bearing with me, for Mr Davidson’s revision, the manuscript of the Committee’s ‶Catalogue of the Brachiopoda of the Lothians and Fife.″ Arriving