Address read to the Coiteswolds Naturalists' Club, at their Winter 

 Meeting, held at Gloucester, January ISth, 1849. By T. Barwick 

 Lloyd Baker, Esq., of Hardwicke Court, President. 



Gentlemen, 



Three summers have now shone on the gatherings of the Cotteswolds 

 Naturalists, and for the third time we are assembled for our winter meeting. 

 Our Club was originally formed on the model of a similar society in 

 Berwickshire, and, as it was there the custom that the President should 

 each year address to the meeting a short recapitulation of the proceedings 

 of the club, so I have readily undertaken to follow the same example, as it 

 leads of course to the adoption of another excellent rule of the same society, 

 by which the President is annually — changed. 



However reluctant, therefore, I may be to trespass on your time and 

 detain you from more interesting matter, I must ask you to bear with me 

 while I go through a short recapitulation of the meetings we, or many of 

 us, have enjoyed together ; and if the looking back to past troubles is 

 agreeable by the contrast, I trust you will not be less inclined on the 

 retrospect of such pure and satisfactory pleasures as ours to say Uac olim 

 meminisse juvabit. 



True to the original design of keeping clear of cities and the grander 

 hostelries, and of seeking Nature in her remoter haunts — our- first meeting 

 took place on the 7th of July, 1846, at the Black Horse, at Birdlip, when 

 the original members of the club were proposed and elected. Hitherto 

 those who, like myself, had taken a warm interest in the idea of such a 

 society, had almost dreaded the moment of its taking a tangible form, least 

 we should find that it was no sooner touched than it dissolved. But when 

 amongst the names of those who were willing to join us, we found those of 

 Daubeny and Strickland — that the Professors of the Royal Agricultural 

 College — together with more names connected with high talent than I will 

 now enumerate — were at our first meeting enrolled amongst us, we began 

 to feel a confidence in that of which we had before but a faint hope, but 

 which has since arrived, I trust as nearly as may be at certainty — that we 

 may go on and prosper. 



But next came a difficulty — a President must be chosen. The list of 

 members was searched for one who would be able and willing to take so 

 eminent a situation, Dr. Daubeny was engaged in services due not more to 

 his University than to the Nation. The Principal of the Cirencester College 

 was carrying out an equally grand and important national benefit. 



Sir Thomas Tancred, with whom had originated the idea of the forma- 

 tion of the Club in this County, and who promised to be and has been our 

 main stay throughout — was willing to take the far more useful office of 

 Secretary. Nearly all were engaged in more important matters (though 

 some urged only modesty as their excuse), till it turned out that the only 



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