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27.— A^^XIYERSAEY ADDEESS. 



By the President, JOHN EVANS, F.R.S., V.P.S.A.. F.G.S., etc. 



[Delivered at the Annual Meeting, 8th February, 1877.] 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — 



I am now, as President, called upon to deliver an Anniversary 

 Address, though I regret that I am not able to present to 

 you much that will be worthy of attention, as I have not had 

 time to prepare anything in a written form. Before proceeding to 

 treat of any particular subject, I think I may fairly congratulate 

 the Society, as the Council has akeady done, on the progress it has 

 made during the first two years of its existence. It is indeed now 

 fully established, and has been and is doing good work. When 

 we look back at the Proceedings of the past year, we see that 

 we have had a series of papers communicated to us of greater or 

 less importance on those different Natural History subjects to which 

 we ought to devote our principal attention. "We have had inter- 

 esting papers on Phenological Phenomena, and on the Botany 

 of the Ermine Street, by Lieutenant Croft ; another paper fi'om the 

 northern part of the county, by Mr. Eortlham, on the supposed 

 extinction of Cyelostoma elegans, the most beautiful of the British 

 land-shells, and comparatively abundant in this part of the county. 

 We have had papers on Anacharis alsinadrum in the CoLne ; on 

 Fish-culture in Hertfordshire, the Biver Colne, the Cuckoo, and 

 other minor subjects, from Dr. Brett. We have also had some 

 Entomological notices, on the Larvae of the Goat-Moth, from Mr. J. 

 H. James, and on the Oleander Hawk-Moth, a very rare moth in 

 this country, from Mr. Pry. Mr. Pryor, who is distinguished as 

 a botanist, not only here but elsewhere, has communicated to us a 

 list of plants found in new situations in the neighbourhood of 

 Watford, and has also called attention to the late blossoming of 

 certain spring flowers which bloomed in October and ^November, as 

 well as early in the spiing. But, perhaps, we may especially con- 

 gratulate ourselves on one of our members — a lady member, Miss 

 Willshin — ha^4ng discovered the Campanula latifolia in the neigh- 

 bourhood of St. Albans, and also a new variety of a thistle and a 

 heath. With regard to another subject — Meteorology — we have 

 had the records of several observers communicated to us ; and from 

 the Report of the Council, it appears that we are likely to have 



