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Annual Address to the Cottesiuold Naturalists' Field Club, read at 

 the Spread Eagle Hotel, Gloucester, on Thursday, 24:th Feb., 1876, 

 by the President, Sik W. V. Guise, Bakt., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. 



Gentlemen, — It is my agreeable duty to make a report in 

 all respects satisfactory of- the present condition and future 

 prospects of the Club. 



I have been constrained to call you together at a somewhat 

 earlier period of the year than has been of late years usual, and 

 this has not permitted the new number of our " Transactions" 

 to be prepared in time for presentation to members on this 

 occasion ; I am assured, however, that it is in a good state of 

 forwardness, it will be issued very shortly, and will prove a good 

 and full number ; it will complete the volume, and will contain 

 a photographic portrait of your President, for which he was 

 specially requested to sit. 



As regards finance, our Honorary Secretary reports that we 

 have spent very little during the year ; and the Annual Meeting 

 being a month earlier than usual, he proposes to pay for the 

 *' Transactions," to settle all other accounts, and to prepare a 

 balance-sheet that will include all receipts and disbursements 

 up to the 25th March, to be printed and sent out with the 

 " Transactions." 



Our numbers are reduced by death and retirement to 87. It 

 is, I am sure, with regret that the Club will learn the retirement, 

 through ill health, of one of our oldest members, Canon Ltsons, 

 who I believe has been associated with us since the earliest days 

 of the Cotteswold Club. Capt. Jones is dead, and Mr. Gkaham 

 Clarke and Capt. Winthkop have resigned, having quitted the 

 neighbourhood. 



With these prefatory remarks I will proceed to give a sum- 

 mary of the proceedings of the Club at the various Field-meets ; 

 premising that if a certain want of novelty and freshness be 

 observable in my record, it is in a large degree due to the fact 



