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ADDRESS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE TYNESIDE 

 NATURALISTS' FIELD CLUB, 



READ AT THEIR EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY MEETING, HELD IN THE COM- 

 MITTEE ROOM OF THE LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF 

 NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, MARCH 15, 1854. By THE PRESIDENT, 



Sir WALTER OALVERLEY TREVELYAN, Bart. 



I regret much, gentlemen, that I was, during the last season, 

 prevented from attending any of the meetings of our Club, and 

 consequently, that losing, as I have done, the benefit of those 

 occasions, I am also unable, from my own observation, to give 

 you any account of the proceedings ; for any particulars regarding 

 which I am indebted to your worthy Secretary. 



Your attendance here, as well as the support you have given 

 to the Club, shows that it is not necessary for me to enlarge on 

 the pleasures and advantages which are conferred by the study and 

 cultivation of Natural History, and how, independently of other 

 advantages, it not unfrequently renders interesting to its vota- 

 ries places in which it may be their lot to dwell, and which, to 

 those devoid of such a taste, might be most uninteresting and 

 irksome. 



Before proceeding to give a short notice of the different meet- 

 ings of the Club, during the past year, I will suggest what I think 

 might prove a fertile field for observation and discovery, if it has 

 not already been explored by any of our members. I allude to the 

 microscopic insect world inhabiting the waters of our lakes and 

 rivers, and probably also to be found in beds, whether of ancient 

 or modern lacustrine deposits, — the richness of some of which, in 

 the genera and species of their remarkable forms, is sometimes 

 wonderful. Professor Gregory of Edinburgh has, for some time, 

 been engaged in examining an earth brought from the Isle of 

 Mull, probably a tertiary or post-tertiary deposit, in which, up 

 to this time (and he has not yet completed his investigations), he 

 has found about 150 different forms or species, many of them 

 new to science. 



VOL. II, PT. IV. 2 T 



