75 



Annual Address to the Cotteswold Naturalists^ Field Club. Read 

 by the President, Sir W. V. Guise, Bart., F.L.S., F.G.S., on 

 Wednesday, March 27, 1867. 



Gentlemen, — 



In observance of our annual custom, I have the honour to 

 submit to you a report upon the proceedings of the Club during 

 the past season. 



It is again satisfactory to observe that in respect of numbers 

 the Club suffers no diminution. It is not necessary now to 

 insist upon the reputation of a society which has secui'ed to 

 itself so eminent a position among similar bodies, as by universal 

 consent attaches to the Cotteswold Club; the greater cause 

 therefore is there that we should not suffer that reputation to 

 decay. It is in this sense that I notice with regret the falling 

 off this year in our pubHshed papers. Dr. Wright's instructive 

 paper on the "Coral beds of the Inferior Oohte" being, in truth, 

 the only one of a character to take a place in our pubhshed 

 transactions. A joint paper, by the Rev. Mr. Stmonds and 

 myself, on the "Belgian Bone-caves," I reluctantly permitted 

 to appear; though, as being merely a record of our personal 

 experiences, it lays but little claim to originahty. The work 

 so well done by Dr. Edoxjaed Dupont in his explorations of 

 the Lesse-valley caves, has received at his hands the fullest 

 elucidation; and all the facts connected with those important 

 discoveries have been embodied in a series of memoirs read 

 before the Academic Royale de Belgique, since published by 

 their illustrious author. Dr. Wright's Monograph on the 



