VOL. XV. (2) THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS 79 
treasures our vice-president and Mrs Bowly had to show 
us. Theirs are names to charm with in archeological 
circles, as their work in and about Cirencester bears 
testimony to. 
Our June Meeting took us to Tewkesbury, Eldersfield, 
and the charming Birtsmorton Court. A more delightful 
day it were almost impossible to conceive. The view from 
the place where we ate our lunch was of singular interest 
and beauty. Our secretary, who was, so to speak, on his 
own ground, read a most lucid paper, in which there was 
food for thought for the botanist, as he quoted an observa- 
tion upon the preservation of plants loving the Rheetic 
shales, as well as for those to whom the earth and 
its structure is of more account than that growing upon 
it. About Dick Whittington. Well, I own to as much 
scepticism about his residence at Eldersfield as I do to the 
existence of his wonderful cat. 
An early start for some of us was involved in the 
joining the excursion to Caerwent. But that was nothing 
in comparison with the treat the day gave us. An archzolo- 
gists’ day no doubt, although not altogether so, for our 
secretary brought us to our bearings once or twice, and so 
made us remember that we are a Naturalists’ Club. 
But how interesting it all was, and how much we 
regretted that a lax secretary’s clerk was the cause of our 
not mingling in friendly argument with our Bristol fellow- 
students. Perhaps it was the absence of numbers—for we 
looked forward to an exceptionally large company, owing 
to the joint meeting of two kindred societies—that made 
our discussions rather tame. Was that really an amphi- 
theatre, or only a cattle-market? We archeologists 
should have contested the point as hotly as you geologists 
have done, and I hope will do, the contemporaneity of a 
bed or some other debateable point in your science. 
