ANNUAL MEETING LORD LILFORD's ADDRESS. 159 



would be (as I am glad to know that it is) well attended, and attended by 

 many gentlemen of far superior scientific knowledge and acquirements 

 to my own, in whose presence I could not dare to deliver an address on 

 what should, in my opinion, be the subject matter of presidential 

 addresses on these occasions, namely, the advance of general scientific 

 knowledge, especially in the branches of Zoology, Botany, Geology, and 

 Meteorology. I am no specialist, ladies and gentlemen ; these sciences 

 are sisters, and a study of one of them leads us towards acquaintance 

 with the others, and all, honestly cultivated, lead us into ways of pleasant- 

 ness, though not invariably into paths of peace. But I, ladies and 

 gentlemen, having been endowed from my earliest recollection with an 

 ardent love for Zoology, am free to confess that I have found its study so 

 delightful and so engrossing, that I have had but little time to spare to 

 the other sisters, and am faithful to my first love to an extent which has 

 rendered me, I fear, almost entirely ignorant of the other charmers. Not 

 to weary you, then, I will only repeat that Zoology is my love, and 

 Ornithology her chief charm in my eyes, and it is on this subject alone 

 that I feel any sort of power to address you. 



As I once said in this room before, I hold that " No shoemaker 

 beyond his last " is a very good old proverb, perhaps particularly appli- 

 cable in tbis great shrine of St. Crispin, and I propose to confine my 

 further remarks to a few observations upon the Ornithology of our 

 county and its neighbourhood. Before proceeding, however, in that 

 direction, I feel sure that I shall be only expressing the general feeling of 

 our society in bidding a most sincere and hearty welcome to those 

 members of our sister societies who have given us the honour and 

 pleasure of their company at this meeting, in wishing them one and all 

 God speed in their various pursuits, and in expressing a hcpe that the 

 present may be the precursor of many merry meetings of a similar 

 character. 



Now I must turn to our own society especially, and congratulate it 

 on its vigorous, robust, and promising growth. We have not completed 

 our fifth year of existence as a society, but the baby is doing well, enjoying 

 life as an infant should, and, I must be allowed to add, showing many 

 signs of increasing intelligence. It began to speak plainly in February 

 last, somewhat late I must confess, but I think that its utterances are, 

 to put it mildly, worthy of an older child. I speak with some delicacy 

 on this subject, as I have myself had a modest share in the said 

 utterances, in using which term I am of course alluding to our " Natural 

 History Journal," which is, I think, on the whole, a very satisfactory 

 production ; long may it continue to be so, and increase in bulk, interest, 

 and intellectual strength. 



I have had the pleasure of sending down for exhibition at the Conversa- 

 zione this evening a collection of birds' skins, containing about 137 speci- 

 mens and 72 species, all of which, with one exception, were obtained within 

 the limits of the Northern Division of Northamptonshire. This collection 

 has no pretension to be a complete one of our county birds, of which 

 the list (as far as I know) reaches to about 190 species, and no doubt 



