340 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



The success that has attended the publication of our 

 proceedings year by year exceeds the most sanguine expecta- 

 tions of those who advocated the project six years ago. Not 

 only as members of this Society, but also as inhabitants of 

 Guernsey, we have every reason to feel proud of the solid, 

 enduring work which has been achieved in various depart- 

 ments of science during that period. Never before has this 

 island been searched and explored and hunted over as it 

 has been since what may be called the resuscitation of 

 the Society. The few old naturalists who in years gone 

 by studied the fauna and flora and the record of the rocks, 

 worked single-handed, and, alas ! much of their labour is 

 now irretrievably lost. But we are banded together for 

 mutual help and encouragement and stimulation, and the result 

 of our work is preserved for all future time in the annals of 

 our Society. 



The Field Excursions which have been held weekly 

 during the summer for the past three years have successfully 

 demonstrated that even dry science has its attractive side ; 

 and if the monthly indoor meetings are as a rule less numer- 

 ously attended than could be wished, the friendly notices and 

 reports which appear in the local journals compensate in some 

 measure for sparse audiences. 



An enormous advance has been made in the study of local 

 geology ; old theories and the views of the past generation 

 have been proved in many cases totally untenable ; the entire 

 subject has been revised under the brilliant light of modern 

 discovery ; researches have been carried on in directions 

 hitherto supposed to be barren, and have yielded the most 

 gratifying results. Hand in hand with the geologist, the 

 archaeologist has been busy exploring and excavating, unearth- 

 ing evidences of human inhabitants at a very early epoch. Full 

 particulars of all these discoveries and the conclusions to 

 which they lead you will find in the 500 or 600 pages compos- 

 ing the two volumes of our proceedings. 



In entomology the papers and lists which have been 

 published show how unexpectedly rich is a small island when 

 assiduously worked year after year. The absence of wood- 

 land and of large ponds and rivers militates against an 

 extensive insect-fauna ; and allowance must also be made for 

 the exposure of the island to the full violence of Atlantic 

 storms ; but, in spite of all this, see what a number of species 

 have been collected here in the only orders at present 

 recorded : — ■ 



