naturalists' societies. i6i 



This would necessitate a marine station, and much more elaborate provision 

 both of skilled workers and appliances. A little might be accomplished on 

 this higher plane, but the work immediately in front of them was faunistic, 

 and this was certainly well within the powers of the East Anglian Societies. 

 There was sometimes a great waste of energy in working independently, and 

 without reference to what other societies had done or might do. He should 

 like to see some arrangements by which each society should work in conjunc- 

 tion with the others, so that any subject taken up might be thoroughly 

 investigated, without the disadvantage of members going over ground that had 

 been already explored, or taking up questions that had been threshed out. 

 Each of the counties concerned had now excellent museums —but to insure 

 that the collections should worthily illustrate the rich East Anglian district, 

 long-continued systematic collecting was necessary. This work, especially the 

 marine dredging, &c., might often be costly and difficult. Combined effort 

 by the three counties might furnish funds and expert assistance which would 

 be beyond the means of any one of the societies working separately. 



Mr. Cole also advocated the establishment of a quarterly journal of 

 natural history, geology and pre-historic archaeology for East Anglia, to be 

 published by the societies of the three counties. At present they had the 

 Essex Natiivalist and the Transactions of the Norfolli and Norwich Natural 

 History Society, but he had not heard of any publication efforts in 

 Suffolk. The quarterly " East Anglian Naturalist " might be edited by three 

 gentlemen nominated by the societies. The main difficulty in the way of 

 such a project was the varying rates of subscriptions of the three societies, but 

 this might be surmounted. He was aware that in advocating the issue of 

 one journal for the district he was not in accord with the views of ."-ome local 

 naturalists, and it must be admitted that the "county" as a unit for local 

 work was yearly becoming more important, in consequence of recent political 

 and social changes. 



Possibly some of them had read recently in leading newspapers letters 

 advocating greater attention being paid to what had happily been termed 

 " the buried history of Britain." In his opinion this most interesting and 

 instructive work of archaeological investigation could best be carried on by 

 the local societies. They had the machinery, but the funds were wanting. 

 Mr. Cole suggested that it might be possible. for the British Association to 

 bring the matter before the Government, who could put it in the power of the 

 County Councils to allocate a very moderate annual sum towards the expenses 

 of such systematic exploration work in biology, geology and archaeology, the 

 prosecution and accomplishments of which would in any case afford object 

 lessons of very considerable patriotic and educational value, and sometimes 

 even confer direct practical benefits upon the districts concerned. 



Prof. Meldola spoke of the advantages to be derived from co-operation 

 and combining forces, but admitted the difficulties that stood in the way. 

 The British Association had not be^n successful in its attempts to promote 

 federation among local societies, for the members of some maintained that 

 better work was done independently than could be done when a number of 

 societies were working together. There were two schools of thought — one in 

 favour of independence, the other in favour of co-operation ; and on the whole 



