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president’s address. 
I feel that an apology is due for occupying your time with this 
imperfect sketch, and, indeed, the fact that it is of necessity so 
imperfect, is my only excuse for its production, for so little do we 
know of the former condition of this wonderfully diversified 
county of ours, and of its furred and feathered inhabitants, that 
this very paucity of knowledge confers a proportionate value on 
every scrap of information we can rescue from oblivion, and on 
us an almost sacred duty to preserve it for those who follow. It 
must not, and I think will not, be left for generations to come 
to reproach those of the present day in this matter, as we have to 
express our regret at the neglect of our predecessors, for the pages 
of the ‘Transactions’ of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ 
Society will, I trust, not only continue to collect and treasure up 
the records of the past, which would, probably, otherwise he lost 
sight of, hut will form a continuous history of the ever-changing 
conditions of the county, both physical and faunal, which will 
become more and more valuable as time renders the record more 
remote. 
