ANNUAL MEETING PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 153 



I fear lam diverging from my legitimate path, but with reference to 

 politics in connection with Natural History, I think I shall be in order 

 when I remind the members of this Union that it was Mr. Gladstone's 

 Government which granted the funds necessary to build the magnificent 

 new Natural History Museum at Kensington. I am sure you will 

 all join with me in expressing the hope that Prof. Owen will live 

 to see the completion of the great work which he mainly set on foot by 

 his exertions, and that the vast stores of natural history specimens 

 now hidden in the vaults of the British Museum will be soon accessible 

 to all of us. 



In conclusion, I must add that, in the name of the Natural History 

 Society of Northampton, I most heartily bid you welcome to our ancient 

 borough, and I hope that you will find both pleasure and profit during 

 your visit here, and that, though this is the first, it will not be the last 

 time such a meeting as the present will take place in this town. 



Immediately afterwards, the Bev. C. F. Thornewill proposed, and 

 Mr. Lav son Tait seconded, and it was unanimously resolved ; — " That the 

 thanks of this meeting be given to the President (Sir Herewald Wake, 

 Bart.) for the address now read, and that the address be printed in the 

 ' Midland Naturalist.' " 



Mr. Edward W. Badger (one of the Hon. Sees, of the Union) then l'ead 

 the following report : — 



THE COUNCIL'S EEPOET. 



The second annual gathering of the societies constituting the 

 Midland Union, held last year at Leicester, was in every way successful ; 

 there was a good attendance of delegates from all parts of the Midland 

 Counties ; the local arrangements were excellent, and admirably carried 

 out ; the President's address was interesting and suggestive, and was 

 listened to with marked attention ; the scientific conversazione — a 

 novelty in Leicester — was well attended, and afforded opportunities for 

 intercourse between members living widely apart, while it yielded much 

 pleasure and instruction to the visitors ; and the day set apart for the 

 excursions to Charnwood Forest was fortunately one of the few fine days 

 of last year — a year which will long be remembered as one of the coldest, 

 wettest, and most disastrous of recent times. About two hundred 

 members and friends joined in the excursions, two in number, one 

 devoted to investigating the botany, and the other the geology of the 

 district ; and, thanks to the two gentlemen who respectively led the 

 excursions— Mr. F. T. Mott, F.E.G.S., and Mr. W. Jerome Harrison, 

 F.G.S. — the large parties under their guidance spent the day most 

 agreeably. 



Your Council have to report that during the year the Bedfordshire 

 Natural History Society and Field Club has joined the Union. They 

 also have to report, and do so with regret, that two Societies have 

 withdrawn from it — viz., the Eugby School Natural History Society, and 

 the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club. They particularly regret losing 

 the membership of the last named Society, which has done, and is doing, 

 much good and useful work, and they trust the members may be 

 induced to reconsider the subject and re-enter the Union. The Woolhope 

 Club has for many years past been steadfastly pursuing the study of 

 fungology, and the papers read before it have thrown much light on 

 obscure points which needed elucidation ; while their annual fungus 



