president's address. 17 



Club would have existed to little purpose if, after its wanderings 

 for so many years over a limited area, the more prominent na- 

 tural productions of its beaten paths were not fairly ascertained, 

 and to say that the study of these has in some measure given 

 place to that of less conspicuous objects is but to assert that the 

 advance of science has not passed unheeded. 



On the other hand, the naturalist must now travel to much 

 greater distances from our manufacturing centres, than of old, 

 for the objects of his search. Mr. Hancock's lament over the 

 destruction of the favourite haunts of wild birds and sea fowl, 

 may be extended to every other department of Natural History- 

 Where is the botanist now to find the plants that used to grow 

 on Prestwick Car, on Boldon £lats, at Hunston, or even on the 

 South Shore east of Gateshead — or at a hundred other localities 

 within easy walk of Newcastle ? 



Taking these things into consideration it may fairly be main- 

 tained that the Club, notwithstanding some tendency to regard 

 the Field Meetings primarily as pleasant excursions, is following 

 a career of usefulness nearly in the lines projected by its foun- 

 ders. Its material prosperity may not be without danger : the 

 first list of members, that of 1847, contained eighty-seven names . 

 its last, published in 1872, has six hundred and twenty-four, 

 but that during the lapse of a quarter of a century no important 

 change should have been necessary in the mode of conducting its 

 affairs is the best testimony to the judgment of those who ruled 

 its early councils, and the happiest promise for its future. 



The cooperation of the Field Club and the Natural Histoiy 

 Society has been most harmonious and much to the advantage 

 of both bodies. The development of collections illustrating the 

 local fauna and flora has been recognized froin the first as one 

 of our leading objects, and the Museum of the Natural History 

 Society has already been enriched in several departments by 

 the efforts of our members. It was the hope of many that 

 these collections would have been utilized to an extent they 

 never yet have been, and that the systematic study of Natural 

 History would have received an impulse it has not hitherto 

 known amongst us, by the establishment of the College of 



B 



