THE 



ESSEX NATURALIST: 



BEING THE 



3outnaf of f0e %*m fieft> CM 



FOR 1905-190 6. 

 (VOLUME XIV.) 



ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS. 



^4/z Address delivered to the Essex Field Club at the Annual Meeting, 

 April 8 tit, 1905, 



By F. W. RUDLER, I.S.O., F.G.S., President. 



THE members of the Essex Field Club have met together on 

 this occasion under circumstances of an exceptionally 

 interesting character. As pointed out in the notice convening 

 this meeting, the Club has now completed the twenty-fifth year 

 of its history. Not only has it gone on for a quarter of a century 

 regularly holding its evening meetings and its field meetings, but 

 during this long period it has enjoyed the advantage of retaining 

 uninterruptedly the services of its Honorary Secretary and 

 Founder, Mr. William Cole. Moreover, for nearly the whole of 

 this long term he has been associated in the Secretarial work 

 with Mr Benjamin G. Cole. This exemplary devotion of two 

 brothers to the service of our Club — not to mention the valued 

 assistance of Mr. Henry A. Cole and of the ladies of the 

 family — seems to me deserving of some recognition, more sub- 

 stantial in character than the verbal thanks formally voted at an 

 Annual Meeting. But Mr. W. Cole, having the interest of the 

 Club ever at heart, assured us some time ago that the recognition 

 of the twenty-fifth Anniversary which would best please him 

 would be the means of completing the Epping Forest Museum. 

 Just as the Club itself originated with Mr. W. Cole, so this 

 museum owes to him its initiation ; and it is consequently but 

 natural that he should desire to see his ideas brought to maturity. 

 Whatever, therefore, may be done on some future occasion, our 

 immediate attention should be given to this modest suggestion 

 with regard to the Forest Museum ; and I think I cannot do 



