PROCEEDINGS 



BERWICKSHIRE NATURALISTS' CLUB. 



Address delivered to the Beriuickshire Naturalists' Cluh 

 at Beriuick, October IMh, 1897. By Rev. Canon 

 Walker, Whalton Rectory, Morpeth, President. 



Gentlemen, 



It is quite impossible, at the close of the year 

 of my office as yonr President, to avoid contrasting the hope 

 with which I accepted the honour you conferred upon 

 me, and the despondency from a sense of failure with 

 which I resign. I hoped to have done so much, and set 

 one or two objects definitely before me to carry out, and 

 at the end nothing is accomplished. But failure has its 

 lessons more truly learned, probably because of that 

 failui'e, and ofttimes those lessons are more valuable than 

 easily won successes. May I indicate one or two of 

 them ? 



First, that each and every branch of study makes 

 laige and almost exclusive demands upon our time and 

 energies, if we are to acquire that accurate acquaintance 

 with facts, which may even satisfy our own thirst for 

 knowledge— let alone qualifying us to be the guides and 

 instructors of others. The limitation of our powers is 

 made more apparent as we apply ourselves to the pursuit 

 of those subjects of human knowledge which are suggested 



B.N.C. VOL. XVI. NO. II. R 



