536 
ADDRESS AT GREAT YARMOUTH 
I had no difficulty in choosing the subject of my address to-night. 
Under ordinary circumstances, I might have dwelt upon the advan- 
tages to be derived from the formation of such a Society as we 
have met here to inaugurate, or on the methods by which we could 
best assist each other in carrying out the objects we have in view, 
but I will leave all this to other and more able exponents ; it seems 
to me that my subject is clearly indicated, and that by calling to 
your recollection the examples of tire distinguished naturalists 
which Yarmouth has produced in the past, I shall offer you the 
strongest possible incentive to emulate them in the future. 
Has it ever occurred to you what a thrill is produced in the mind of 
every ornithologist by the utterance of the word Yarmouth, or even 
more so by the mention of Breydon Water ! I think I can say 
of the one, that early in the present century such a little coterie of 
naturalists existed within its walls as were not to be found in any 
other provincial town in England, and of Breydon, that no spot 
of like extent has produced so many rarities and added so many 
species to the Avifauna of the British Isles, as that resistless centre 
of attraction to the weary migrant. Throughout Europe and perhaps 
the world, wherever bird-men do congregate, there are the names of 
Yarmouth and Breydon familiar. It is about these men and birds 
that, with your permission, I should like to say a few words at this 
first meeting of the Yarmouth section. 
I have said that towards the end of the past century and during 
the first half of the present there lived at, or were attracted to, 
Yarmouth, a little knot of men possessed of rare powers of obser- 
vation, and who have left their mark indelibly on the ornithology 
of the county. The first of these which claims our attention is 
Lilly Wigg, a man who employed the small amount of leisure which 
his duties— first as a shoemaker, then schoolmaster, and finally as a 
bank clerk — left at his disposal, in studying the natural productions 
within his reach, and so highly were his efforts appreciated that 
about the year 1800, he earned the distinction of Associate of the 
Linnean Society. Wigg was born in 1749, and died in 1828 ; his 
special study was Botany, more particularly the Marine Algae, on 
one species of which his friend Dawson Turner bestowed his name ; 
