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Jamaica, who has offered to determine our Hies, and is particu- 

 larly interested in bot-flies, and there are many others who are 

 constantly doing work for us, and, thanks to whom, we shall 

 soon have a fine collection, if our efforts are persevering and 

 systematic. It is extremely pleasing to me to know that we 

 have such hosts of friends who are so willing to help us in what 

 we cannot do for ourselves, if we will only consult them, and if 

 we work in the future as we have in the past, we shall soon be 

 able to show that we have made considerable strides in our 

 knowledge of tlio fauna of the Island. 



Amongst the friends of the Club which we number in the 

 Island, I will only venture to mention two : one, who is one of 

 our Members — Sir John Goldney — who has pi^omised us a hand- 

 some start with our Library, and Dr. de Boissiere, who has 

 undertaken to help us by advocating, from his place in the 

 Legislative Council, our cause in the matter of obtaining from 

 the Government spirit duty free for the preservation of our 

 reptiles, the list of Avhich is now rapidly nearing completion. To 

 these gentlemen, without being invidious, I think I may say our 

 hearty acknowledgments are due. 



There is another class of friends to whom I think we should 

 also be grateful, and they are the subscribers to our Journal, who 

 enable us to keep it going with very little help from Club funds. 

 It speaks volumes for the progress of the people of Trinidad 

 dui'ing the last few years to find that we are able to keep a 

 magazine of the character of the Journal running with such an 

 uninterrupted continuity of success. 



Gentlemen : I have pointed out in a rapid and inadequate 

 manner a few of the events of the past year in the life of the 

 Trinidad Field Naturalists' Club and now I turn to the work 

 which awaits us. Last year I described the work lying before 

 us as stupendous. This year I am more than ever impressed 

 with the fact. As time goes on we shall find out the more we 

 learn how infinitesimally little we really know. The great and 

 wonderful book of Nature is lying open before us, v/aiting for our 

 perusal. We, v/ith our busily occupied lives — only able to devote 

 a portion of our leisure to snatch a glimpse now and then at its 

 pages — we are as little children trying to spell out a letter at a 

 time a few of her wondrous secrets ; perhaps we may add to our 

 knowledge of the extraordinary and diversified life of the lower 

 creation a little fact here and another one there, but were we 

 able, as many of us would like to be able, to lay aside all other 

 occupations and go into the Fields, the Forests, the Hills, the 

 Valleys, the Rivers, and the Lagoons, and spend a long life-time 

 in the contemplation of Nature's handiwork as it appears in such 

 unbounded profusion on every side, we should find when it comes 



