ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 239 



be better and more fully dealt with in a Memoir which will 

 be drawn up by one of the learned Doctor's oldest associates 

 in this Club, and formino; one of the most interesting; 

 contents in the Proceedings of the year now closed, 

 will enable him who is gone to speak to coming 

 generations who knew him not, as it has been our great 

 privilege to know him. 



As the first item of our Agenda to-day, I shall submit to 

 you a Resolution, expressing the Club's sense of its 

 in-eparable loss, and respectfully offering sympathy to the 

 bereaved widow and relations. It is right too that I 

 should state to the Club that yesterday week I took on 

 myself as your President, with the office-bearers, and several 

 ex-Presidents and members, including Captain Norman, 

 R.N., Dr Cahill, Messrs J. Ferguson, G. Bolam, G. P. Hughes, 

 R. Middlemas, W. T. Hindmarsh, R. G. Bolam, T. S. 

 Doughty, Maddan, and Hood, and possibly others who must 

 forgive me if I have omitted to mention them, to represent 

 you at the funeral of our aged official. I thought it a 

 great mark of touching courtesy to the Club, that the 

 chief Mourner requested our Secretary to conduct the 

 devotional services at the graveside. I need not say 

 that the invitation was accepted, and that the words 

 of prayer uttered by the Rev. Mr Gunn were full of 

 pathos and comfort. 



By the thoughtful courtesy of Mr Hay of Duns Castle, 

 a lovely wreath from the heart of the Merse was given me, 

 as your President, which I deposited on the grave, with the 

 folio v/ing inscription I attached : — " From the Berwickshire 

 Naturalists' Club. A Floral Token of affectionate regard 

 for the Memory of Dr. James Hardy, the Club's most 

 esteemed and oldest friend. 



Laid on his Tomb by 



David Milne Home, 



President for the year 1898. 

 oth October 18<)8." 



