55 



Mr Lees proceeded to read a paper on "The Plants that more particularly 

 flourish on Silurian limestone."* The Rev. G. Davies, of Tewkesbury, then read 

 an elaborate paper on " The migrations of the house-martin, swift, and sand- 

 martin." He argued that their migration was not governed by the weather, but 

 by the instinct which led them to seek a country in which a sufficiency of their 

 insect food could be found, at the time of year when it is no longer to be obtained 

 in England. He combated very effectively the notion that some swallows pass 

 the winter in a state of torpidity in this country. 



The next paper read was by Mr. Wheatley. 



Thanks were voted to Mr. Wheatley for his excellent paper, with a request 

 that he will permit the Club to publish it in extenso. A vote of thanks to the 

 Chairman closed the proceedings about half-past nine p.m., and the company 

 shortly afterwards separated. 



ADDRESS BY THE REV. W. S. SYMONDS. 

 To the gentlemen of the Cotteswold Club, who would recall the great general 

 apathy that" formerly existed in the public mind respecting natural history, the 

 Eastnor Meeting must possess a particular interest, and a peculiar value and 

 signification. The sister counties of Hereford and Worcester had other institu- 

 tions and societies well adapted to carry out the ends propo.sed ; but as a Society 

 engaged in the personal investigation of natural science, as a society formed for 

 the sike of the personal observations of the rocks of the mountain, the birds of 

 the air, the plants of the field, and the habits and wonders of the insect world, 

 the Cotteswold gentlemen had, until lately, stood alone, and they would therefore 

 thoroughly appreciate the formation of the Woolhope and Malvern Societies, 

 which were established on the same system, and were conducted on the same 

 plan. 



Until lately the study of natural history had scarcely been recognised in 

 England as a public study ; and I was sure that many of the gentlemen present 

 would agree with me, when I said that we most of us had closed our educational 

 career without once having had our attention directed to those subjects, which 

 are, after all, the most intellectual as well as the most interesting. 



The system of training is chiefly confined to the classics and mathematics, 

 and the consequence was, we went forth to our different spheres of duty as 

 ignorant of the great volume of nature, or, in other words, the book of God's 

 works, as if the world were made up of no other articles than the Latin, and no 

 other particles than the Greek ; not that I would for one moment wish to 

 depreciate the value of the classical and mathematical literature-it is the one- 

 sided system that is to be lamented, and the absurdity of confining the system of 

 education, and the acquisition o f University honours, to those subjects alone. 



« This D-ioer revised bv the Author with additional matter, is to be found in Transactions oi 

 thJ^Ialvem Fie d Club pate. 15 to 28, which were published in 1870. See also that pleasant y 

 written work ''Pktures'omature iu the Silurian region around the Malvern H.lls," by Edwin 

 Lees. Excursion III., page 49, published 1856. 



