24 Lincolnshire Notes & Queries. 



taken. The botanical section was, however, most successful, 

 and several rare plants were found, the most interesting, 

 perhaps, being the lovely dark blue gentian, in damp places on 

 the moor. I must take this opportunity of publicly expressing 

 the thanks of the Union to our Secretary, Mr. Walter F. 

 Baker, whose untiring and intelligent exertions and great 

 aptitude for organisation have done so much in setting us in 

 motion and making the Union a success. 



Before closing these remarks as we are now engaged in 

 rocking the cradle of the Union I should like to say a few 

 words as to the possibilities of a future, and the taking up of a 

 useful position. There is no other county in England in 

 which the fauna and flora have so greatly altered ; large 

 numbers of birds, insects and plants have been altogether 

 destroyed, or, in the former case, driven away by enclosure and 

 drainage. It becomes therefore an imperative duty that we 

 should use our best endeavours to preserve what is left and to 

 take care that our scarcer mammals, nesting birds and surviving 

 plants are not ruthlessly destroyed and unnecessarily banished. 

 There is no sadder chapter to read than that on " Extermi- 

 nation," in Professor Newton's recently published Part I. of 

 "A Dictionary of Birds ;" it is a record of a destruction and 

 waste of life in this fair world, brought about directly or 

 indirectly by the ignorance, avarice, and greed of civilised man, 

 assisted in late years by that rage for wearing feathers that now 

 and again seizes civilised women. 



Much might be accomplished if we could give our people an 

 intelligent knowledge of their natural surroundings and an 

 interest in their preservation. It would be a step in the right 

 direction if object lessons were occasionally given in our village 

 schools in connection with Natural History, illustrated from 

 those easily accessible raw materials of observation in the 

 neighbourhood, which would best illustrate the every-day life 

 of plants and animals. 



I fear there is no class of men who, considering the very 

 favourable opportunities they have, are so proverbially ignorant 

 of the economy of out-door life as the gamekeepers, and so 

 systematically destroy what it is often their best interest to 

 preserve. Agriculturists, too, as a class, with but few 

 exceptions, are deplorably indifferent to, and ignorant of, the 

 most elementary principles of Natural Science. They care 

 for none of these things. In looking back, however, I am 

 proud to admit many genuine services rendered by agricultural 



