62 



This was the nineteenth annual meeting of mycologigts at Hereford since 

 the institution of the Fungus Forays of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club in 

 1868. The labour and responsibility of conducting these forays were undertaken 

 by one man ; for several years they were unique, but have now been imitated in 

 several places — e.g., Paris, Scotland, Leeds, Epping Forest, &c. — but they have 

 never been equalled. Are the meetings to be allowed to lapse ? Can they not be 

 invigorated? For there is no doubt that the absence of the energetic " presiding 

 genius," Dr. Bull, has been keenly felt by all the visitors whom we have been in 

 the habit of welcoming at our autumnal gatherings. Let each member of the 

 Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club resolve what answer he is to give to these 

 questions after he has read the following 



ADDEESS 



By Dr. M. C. Cooke, M.A., LL.D., A.L.S., &c., at the Fungus Foray 

 Dinner, October 7th, 1886 :— 



"Gentlemen, — There are times and seasons when the most ready and 

 apt amongst us experience a profound difficulty in facing the situation. 

 When courage seems to shrink dismayed from the prospect of an unequal 

 contest. When self-assurance leaves us all trembling and abashed. When 

 the fulness of the heart overpowers all the efforts of the head. To-day, 

 more than ever I remember to have felt, am I conscious of rising to a 

 task and a duty which, were it not a duty as well as a task, I could 

 not have attempted. Even now I should be tempted to relinquish it did I 

 not feel that your sympathies are with me, and that there is not one within sound 

 of my voice whose heart does not throb in unison with my own in the memories of 

 this anniversary. This Woolhope dinner, of which we have so often partaken 

 together, and yet so different from all its predecessors. This Green Dragon room, 

 in which we have met so often with smiling faces, if not with uproarious mirth, 

 and yet to-day our hearts are heavy and we cannot smile. We have eaten and we 

 have drunken, almost in silence, as if a spirit hovered over us, and overpowered 

 U8 by its presence. 



" With a slow and noiseless footstep 



Comes that messenger Divine, 

 Takes the vacant chair beside me. 



Lays his gentle hand in mine ; 

 And he sits and gazes at me 



With those deep and tender eyes, 

 Like the stars, so still and saint-like. 



Looking downward from the skies. 



It is that ' vacant chair ' which reveals the secret of the change in the dinner of 

 to-day. It is the consciousness of that unseen presence which is gazing upon us 

 with those deep and sympathetic eyes, that fills us with such strange emotions. 

 Surely we should be less than human if we remained unmoved under the influence 

 of such memories. To those of us who have come from a distance to meet at this 

 annual celebration, the occasion is perhaps more suggestive, more impressive than 

 it may be to those who have trod the streets of this old city for twelve months. 



