pkesident's addekss. 139 



actions, which we owe to his pen, will stand long as the model 

 and type of what a local Fauna should be. John Hancock was 

 the typical field naturalist. Behind the naturalist's eye he pos- 

 sessed the artist's soul, and this enabled him to ennoble the art 

 of taxidermy. What I individually owe to him, it is difficult 

 for me adequately to express. Considerably more than half a 

 century ago, I recall the kindness with which he received the 

 schoolboy and sacrificed a long afternoon, not merely in exhibit- 

 ing his choice collection of eggs, but in explaining and enforcing 

 the lessons in ornithology they taught, and in shewing how every 

 environment of locality and position of the nest had a significance 

 which illustrated the life of the bird. Who could watch John 

 Hancock as he described, with an artless eloquence, the feats 

 and actions of a falcon — every motion of his body, and the glance 

 of his eagle eye, almost reacting the scene he depicted — without 

 feeling that he was listening to a master of bird life ? This, 

 indeed, he was, and your Museum attests that he was as true a 

 poet as any who ever wielded the sculptor's chisel or handled 

 the artist's brush. His sympathy was with nature, and his groups 

 are '' vitalized by one who felt the life of birds as something 

 kindred with his own, and, inspired with this sympathy and la- 

 bouring to utter it, he recreated life as it were within the grasp 

 of death." Nowhere has he shown his descriptive power more 

 forcibly than in his description of a day's bird-nesting on Prest- 

 wick Carr, in those golden days when, even within reach of your 

 city, there were nooks teeming with bird life as rich and varied 

 as can be found in the wilds of Scandinavia. 



I feel very strongly that the life work of John Hancock claims 

 from us some permanent recognition ; and I venture to suggest 

 that this may fittingly be done by the establishment of an annual 

 medal for the encouragement of Natural History studies in such 

 a manner as a committee of subscribers may decide. 



It is sometimes said that the day of Field. Clubs has -gone by, 

 and that there is nothing left for us to do on our soil, marched 

 through and through for so many years ; and that the naturalist 

 is no longer needed, but must give place to the biologist ; that 

 the field-glass and the lens must be abandoned for the micros- 



