86 THE COMING OF AGE OF 



It is to be regretted that the contributions to plant-biology 

 have not been more numerous, but there are man}' reasons tell- 

 ing against the prosecution >^f this kind of work by the members 

 of local societies. It is a subject requiring close and constant 

 application and is thus generally beyond the powers of the 

 amateur botanist who is too busy with his ordinary occupations 

 to attend to such work. The necessary experimental investiga- 

 tions also demand much skill and originality as well as a certain 

 command of appliances which are not always available to the 

 amateur. Expert botanists belonging to local societies who 

 do work in this field generally publish their results through 

 some central learned society, and so the botanical work of field 

 clubs must necessarily be of the nature of species recording to a 

 preponderating extent. I. still think, however, that the sugges- 

 tions made by Prof. Bayley Balfour at the Manchester Confer- 

 ence of Delegates of the Corresponding Societies of the British 

 Association in 1887 concerning the study of life-histories should 

 not be allowed to fall into oblivion in Essex (Essex Naturalist, 

 I., 200, 278). Among the few notes reterable to botanical 

 bionomics is that by Messrs. Rosling and Miller Christy in 1884 

 on the transmission of " form " in heterostyled plants {Proc. IV., 

 cxxvii.) and Mr. Joseph Clarke's " Hint on the Vitality of Seeds " 

 {Ibid., cxxix.). 



The remarks made under Zoology with reference to collect- 

 ing apply with equal or even greater force to plants. The 

 subject of plant preservation was specially discussed at our 

 meeting on Oct. 31st, 1885, and a series of resolutions were passed 

 by those present which it is to be hoped will be always considered 

 as expressive of the policy of the Club throughout the future 

 (Proc. IV,, clxxviii. ; Essex Naturalist, II., 47, and report of 

 Easton Lodge meeting, Ibid. X., 179). 



III.— GEOLOGY, PALEONTOLOGY, PHYSIOGRAPHY 

 AND SEISMOLOGY. 



In this department we may claim to have carried out our 

 programme witli marked success. I will venture to quote a 

 passage from an advanced proof of the article on the Geology of 

 Essex, written by Mr. Horace B. Woodward for the Victoria 

 History of the County : — 



