ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen, 



Having been requested to furnish some paper for to-day's 

 meeting of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field 

 Club (the first occasion of its meeting for the reading of 

 papers) I thought I could not do better, as the Founder of 

 the Club, than addi'ess you on the objects and advantages 

 of such Institutions, at the same time suggesting any points 

 for your consideration which it seems to me may add to the 

 success of our own body, and lead to fruit of real value in 

 a scientific point of view. 



Field clubs are now so numerous, there being one in 

 almost every county, — in some counties even more than 

 one, — and they are so well known to that part of the 

 public who take any interest in such gatherings, that it is 

 quite unnecessary to particularize them individually. Ours 

 is one of the last that has sprung up. The oldest of them, 

 if I am not mistaken, and the one which has, perhaps, most 

 to show in the way of results, — having published several 

 volumes of Transactions, — and therefore, we may fairly assume, 

 one of the best regulated, and deserving to be taken as a guide 

 for others, is the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, instituted in 

 1831, and which has been now three- and-thirty years in the 

 field. Many years back I had the gratification of attending 

 one of its field days, and I was much impressed with the 

 advantages to be derived from such gatherings by naturalists 

 and others who interest themselves in scientific pursuits, or 

 who value opportunities of intercourse with men of inquiring 

 minds meeting together, — to say nothing of the bodily health 

 and exercise got by the excursion itself. I felt satisfied that 

 the example thus set would soon be taken up in other places, 

 and similar clubs instituted elsewhere, and such has been the 

 event as already stated. 



But though the Berwickshire Club is the oldest of our 

 modern Clubs, it is interesting to find that the idea of thus 

 enlisting men of the same taste for out-of-door natural 

 history purposes is of more ancient date. In the life of the 

 illustrious Swedish naturalist, Linnseus, there is an amusing 

 account of his getting together " a cai'avan of naturalists" — 

 students who had offered their services — to accompany him 

 on a tour through Dalecarlia in the year 1734, with a view to 

 explore its natural productions, and whom he marshalled 

 under " certain laws and regulations, for the due observance 



