THE ADDRESS 



Of the retiring President, C. "Ween Hosktns, Esq., read, lefore 

 the Members of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, at 

 their Annual Meeting, held in Hereford, on Thursday, 

 March nth, 1864. 



Gentlemeit of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 



I am afraid to say how many years have passed since I was 

 standing one day in a Bookseller's shop in Warwick, when a 

 gentleman, personally unknown to me, came in and took up a 

 pamphlet from the top of a heap fresh from the Printer's, 

 which had my own name on the Title page, and contained the 

 first year's Transactions of the Naturalists' Field Club of that 

 County. 



I experienced a very agreeable sensation on seeing the 

 stranger immediately take out his purse, with the apparent in- 

 tention of buying it. But Capital is proverbially timid, and 

 self-love Uable to disappointment. As he looked closer at the 

 Title page I had the mortification to observe that his purse 

 gradually made a retrograde movement towards his pocket ; the 

 ungrateful action being accompanied and explained by his utter- 

 ance of the words "0, it's only an Annual Address ! " 



As soon as he had left the shop, little aware of the slaughter 

 inflicted upon my hopes in that short pantomime, the publisher, 

 who was himself at the counter, looked across at me with the 

 consolitary smile of 



"the fiend who never spoke before, 

 But cries, 'I warn'd you,' when the deed is o'er" 



