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concerted action among members of the Club with a view of ascertaining facts as 

 to the distribution of rainfall over our district. The idea does not seem to have 

 commended itself to the Club, so far as I am informed, but in the paper read by 

 Mr. Warde Fowler, a similar suggestion for such action was made, which may 

 possibly be more practicable, endorsed as it was by what fell from Mr. Watkins 

 subsequently in his paper on bird migration. As the study of ornithology and 

 the observation of the avifauna of the district appear to be just now in some 

 favour among us, I may, I hope, be allowed to give Mr. Fowler's suggestion in his 

 own words, leaving it to members to act upon it as they shall see their opiX)r- 

 tunity. " And here I should like to make a remark in which I hope I shall not 

 be anticipating anything that will be said by the next reader. I have often been 

 struck by the comparative meagreness of our knowledge of the movements of 

 birds in our own country. We know in a general way that certain birds move 

 north and south at certain times of the year, and we know at what time they 

 reach or pass our own particular haunts. But of the course they take in their 

 journeys we know very little ; yet we may be pretty sure, on the analogy of more 

 distant migrations, that that course is regular, and, for the most part unvaried. 

 Depend upon it there is much to be learnt of migration under our very eyes ; and 

 to this everyone can contribute something which a little organization might turn 

 to good account. It is, in fact, organization which is the great thing needed to 

 make county societies useful, so far as ornithology is concerned. Counties are 

 purely artificial divisions, and the ornithology of a county has, as a rule, only the 

 same kind of interest on a larger scale as the ornithology of a parish or a union. 

 What county observers should aim at, if I may venture to say so, is some kind of 

 organization which should include the observers of all such neighbouring counties 

 as form in a greater or less degree a natural division of the island." I am 

 indebted to Mr. Lloyd for suggesting to me another topic which I think it well to 

 submit to you. This is, the practicability and the desirableness of making our 

 Field Meetings more markedly occasions of instruction, for those who wish to be 

 instructed, in any of the branches of natural science which come under review in 

 the course of them. Mr. Lloyd's idea is that of one geological, one botanical, one 

 entomological — or as the case might be — leader being marked out for each 

 excursion, to whom members might attach themselves particularly according to 

 the bent of their inclinations and tastes, and who should be i)repared to point out 

 what was most worth notice, give explanations, and answer questions, on the 

 particular subject which he professed. Curiously enough, not long after Mr. 

 Lloyd's conversation with me, I had the opportunity of seeing a correspondence 

 which my friend Mr. La Touche had bad with Sir Joseph Hooker on this very 

 subject, and Sir Joseph's idea is precisely in the main that of Mr. Lloyd ; or Mr. 

 Lloyd's idea his. He (Sir J. Hooker) indeed seemed to me to have elaborated his 

 scheme beyond what would be found workable, in the case at all events of 

 ordinary field clubs. And, considering what the objects of a field club are from 

 all points of view, I cannot but think that it is in the temptation to over-elaborate 

 such a scheme, and to encompass it with too many rules and regulations, that 

 danger would lie. But certainly the idea itself is well worth your consideration, 



