As judged by the questionnaire the meeting was widely enjoyed as illustrated by the flavor of these comments: " splendid mixture of plenary speakers;" "interesting symposia and a great group of people;" "excellent talks, excellent format, excellent informal discussions;" "small enough to meet people and have lengthy discussions;" "the diversity of subjects and the consistently high quality of the talks;" "participation of so many young people."

Generally you were very satisfied with the meeting . You felt that: both the size and the format of the meeting were about right; the presentations by the young investigators were innovative and should be expanded; more time should be devoted to the posters, with different ways of arranging these sessions, and allocation of specific times for presenters to be at their posters; the experiment of ad hoc talks was not deemed to be successful.

You all believe that the Congresses have a special feel that results from their size and from the unique relationship between neuroscience and behavior. This a relationship that I wish to foster because of the extraordinary insights into mechanisms that can result. Maintaining the essential flavor of our discipline while pushing into new areas will present a continuing challenge for the planners of our meetings.

The results of the ballot for election of officers are as follows (winners are in bold font):

Robyn Hudson (86); Dorothy Hayman Paul (63); Masaki Sakai (84); Barbara Schmitz (79 ); Andrea Megela Simmons (63); Peter Simmons (70); Annemarie Surlykke (85)

Total number of ballots returned 208.
The ballots were counted on the 22nd October in the presence of Thomas Matheson, Berthold Hedwig, Michael Gebhardt, Chris Graham, Jeremy Niven and Malcolm Burrows. There were 208 valid ballot returns from the 501 papers that were distributed.

Could I welcome the new officers and council members aboard. I hope that together we can continue to make this an exciting Society that meets the needs of its membership. I am sure you will join with me in thanking the retiring officers and the retiring members of council for their contribution to the Society.

Kioshi Aoki, Life Science Institute, Sophia Univ., 7-1 Kioicho Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102,Japan k-aoki@hoffman.cc.sophia.ac.jp
Catherine Carr, Dept. of Biology, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD. 20742 USA. cc117@umail.umd.edu
Avis Cohen, Dept. of Biology, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA, ac61@umail.umd.edu
Martin Heisenberg, Theodor Boveri Institut (Biozentrum), Lehrstuhl f. Genetik, Univ. WŸrzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 WŸrzburg., Germany heisenberg@biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de
Sten Grillner, Nobel institute for Neurophysiology, Karolinska Institute, Box 60400, Stockholm S-10401, Sweden, sten.grillner@neuro.ki.se
Gwen A. Jacobs, Center for Computational Biology, Montana State Univ, P.O. Box 173505, Bozeman, MT 59717-3505, USA, gwen@nervana.montana.edu
Edward Kravitz, Dept. of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, 220 Longwood Ave., Boston MA 02115, USA, ekravitz@warren.med.harvard.edu
Ian M. Meinertzhagen, Dept. of Psychology, Life Sciences Centre, Dalhousie Univ., 1355 Oxford St., Halifax NS B3H 4J1, Canada, iam@is.dal.ca
Alison Mercer, Dept. of Zoology, Univ.of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, alison.mercer@stonebow.otago.ac.nz
Peter Narins, Dept. of Physiological Sciences, Univ. of California - Los Angeles, 405 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles, CA, USA, pnarins@ucla.edu
Gerhard Neuweiler, Zoologisches Inst., Univ. MŸnchen, Luisenstr. 14, D-80333 MŸnchen, Germany, neuweil@zi.biologie.uni-muenchen.de
Michael O'Shea, Sussex Centre for Neuroscience, Univ. of Sussex, School of Biological Sciences, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK, bafu7@central.sussex.ac.uk
Joachim Pflueger, Inst. Neurobiology, Freie UniversitŠt Berlin, Kšnigin-Luise-Str. 28-30, D-14195 Berlin, Germany, hpfluege@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de
Catherine Rankin, Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver British Columbia V6T 1Y7, Canada, crankin.@cortex.psych.ubc.ca
Harald Wolf, Vergleichended Neurobiologie (Bio IV), Univ. Ulm, D-89069 Ulm (Donau), Germany, harald.wolf@biologie.uni-ulm.de

One of the highlights of the 1998 Congress was the first Founder’s Talk. Appropriately, this first talk was given by Ted Bullock. An "anonymous" reporter provided the following account of the talk. We hear that the full version of the talk is likely to appear in Journal of Comparative Physiology A.

Under the declarative title "Neuroethology Has Pregnant Agendas," Ted held forth on some themes he said were interesting to him and seemed promising. Granting that most of the advances are likely to be at the molecular and cellular levels, he chose examples of opportune but relatively neglected approaches from more integrative levels and became quite specific, posing two classes of questions.

(1) First, what cells or assemblies of cells and what patterns of activity are sufficient to accomplish recognition of ethologically important stimulus configurations and initiation of behavioral action? He urged the use of gentle microstimulation of loci in the brain where cells have been found to be responsive to complex, natural stimuli (e.g., faces, worms, bugs, songs) under conditions conducive to the performance of tell-tale behavior. By extension, microinjection of modulatory substances into regions with such complex recognition cells as well as recording wide-band electrical activity from cells and populations of cells in behaving animals with multiple electrode arrays were included.

The talk was followed by several tributes to Ted from John Edwards, Nick Strausfeld, Glenn Northcutt, Jim Enright, Ted Melnechuk, and Don Kennedy (in abstentia). While space precludes presenting all of these tributes, with the permission of the authors, and of Ted, we are including two of these special odes.

You are old Father Bullock, the postdoc said,
With callowness typifying youth,
And yet you incessantly give good advice,
At your age, is it rather uncouth?

In my youth, said the Ted, raising bushy eyebrow,
I listened to sages and peers,
Now I’m wiser, and older (and please do kowtow)
For there is dew yet behind your young ears.

You are old, said the youth, I’ll say this again
Yet, your studies are still up to snuff,
You compare, you contrast, your work is our gain,
How do you come up with this stuff?

In my halcyon days, not yet over, for sure
I learned to collaborate freely,
For this is the way that ideas mature
Instead of being mean and quite mealy.

I don’t mean to offend, said the youth with compliance,
I am curious to know how you rise
To so much, so diverse, fundamental to science,
Do you think that is awfully wise?

Now, I’ve answered four questions, none of them clever,
Said Ted Bullock, with forbearance afresh;
Here’s one word of advice, and that is to never
With rhetoric your young mind enmesh.

So admire the sea shore, the depths of the ocean,
Cherish this Planet’s delight.
And when you do this, you’ll come up with a notion
And your mind will surely take flight.

For Ted Bullock
by John Edwards
(sung to the tune of the British Grenadiers)

From Sherrington to Wiersma, from Lucas to Denny Brown and Co,
From electric fish to giants, he knows all there is to know.
And of all the world's great neuro's theres none who can compare
With a tra ra ra ra ra ra for our Ted Bullock here.

Some talk of Aphrodite and some of Eunices
Of Nereis and Polynoe, and such great worms as these
But of all the world's giant axons, Ted Bullock is the master
With a ra ra ra ra ra for our Ted Bullock here!

Some talk of Eigenmannia, and some of Torpedo,
Of Raja and Gymnotus, and all the ones you know
But of all the world's electric fish, Ted Bullock is the master
With a ra ra ra ra ra for our Ted Bullock here!

Some talk of higher functions and some of sea anemones,
Of snakes and snails and nematodes, of owls and manatees
But of all the world's great neuro's there's none who can compare
With a ra ra ra ra ra for our Ted Bullock here!