255 



It is these gradual changes in connection with the intricate 

 relationship in which all plants and animals stand to the outer 

 world, as well to each other, a relationship so close as to bind " the 

 Flora and Fauna of every region into a whole, of which no part 

 can be affected without affecting the rest,"* that gives so much 

 importance to local Natural History. And what is most to our 

 present purpose, they find work for Field Clubs like our own of the 

 very best kind. Nothing could be more in keeping with the 

 objects for which the members of such clubs combine, nor more 

 serviceable to the interests of true science, than the habit of 

 noting down, and putting together in a systematized form, all siich 

 particulars in the Natural History of a given district as shall sei-ve 

 for a standard of comparison with the same district in times to 

 come, when studied in turn by those who follow after us. And 

 there is the greater need for this from the circumstance that 

 though the changes from natural cavises are slow in operation, 

 there are other and greater changes brought about much more 

 rapidly by man, whose power over nature is so great, and so marked 

 wherever he has taken up his abode. The alterations effected in 

 our Faunas and Floras by his instrumentality, by the extirpation 

 of some species of plants and animals and the introduction of 

 others, and by the influence of his presence on the habits and 

 instincts and modes of life of such as continue to reside in the 

 same neighbourhood with him, exceed the changes from all other 

 sources put together occurring within the same period of time. 



This subject has been well considered by Sir W. Jardine. 

 Speaking of Field Clubs, and the great change that has taken 

 place in the surface of this country during the last 50 years, 

 from the increase of population, from agricultural improvements, 

 plantations, drainage, enclosure of waste lands, and from artificial 

 works of every kind, he says : — " It will be to these Clubs that we 

 shall be indebted for a record of what existed in their days ; 



there is nothing that should prevent an active Club 



from filling up in a few years a list of the productions within their 

 beat, leading to a complete and accurate Fauna and Flora of our 

 own time and age ; and generations succeeding would be able not 



* Herbert Spencer, "Principles of Biology," vol. i., p. 426. 

 O 



