256 



only to mark the changes of these productions, but to judge and 

 reason upon the effects which these now so-called improvements 

 have produced on the climate and soil, and the fertility and 

 increase of the latter. These clubs (he adds) have yet to write 

 the Natural History of Great Britain."* 



And there is another way in which Field Clubs may advance the 

 cause of science ; and that is by directing their i-esearches with a 

 view to establishing or disproving the hypotheses or theories, which- 

 ever we like to call them, that have been brought forward to 

 account for the multiplied details of animal and vegetable life 

 which the study of Biology has revealed to us of late years. I 

 alluded at the beginning of my Address to the questions which 

 engage the attention of naturalists at the present day, and with 

 these questions you will have connected, I dare say, much of what 

 I have been stating in the course of it. Are the views held by 

 Darwin and others respecting evolution, and the instability of 

 species and natural selection, deserving of our confidence or not 1 

 This is one of the chiefest of those questions, and to which the 

 right answer can only be returned after further research, and more 

 numerous observations. The solution, too, depends upon the 

 number of observers. It is not one man that will furnish the 

 answer. If we ever get it, it will only be by the combined labours 

 of naturalists widely dispersed, each taking up some separate 

 branch of the inquiry in a fixed spot, where he can give his closest 

 attention to the successive appearances that come under his eye, 

 as he watches from day to day, and from year to year, the natural 

 productions of the neighbourhood in which he is located. And 

 need I say that tiiis is just the work which ought to emanate from 

 a Club like ours, professing to study the Natural History of its own 

 particular district. Who better than the members of such a Club 

 can make the observations we waut 1 



I will not take up your time now by specifying all the particular 

 researches that need to be made in reference to this subject, many 

 of which could only be successfully carried on, and for the requisite 

 ^ength of time, by residents on the spot. I shall hope to bring 



* Jilemoira of Strickland. I know the passage only from a quotation in 

 Proceedings of Berwicksh, Nat. Club, vol. v., p. 405. 



