PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 
with his purse and influence the promotion of any object of 
scientific or general interest. Mr. T. Wyndham Cremer, whose 
fine collection of birds and genial hospitality afforded so much 
pleasure to those members who went to Beeston last August, must 
with extreme regret bo included in the obituary, lie was one of 
the old school of sportsmen-naturalists, now becoming so rare, and 
nearly all the extensive local collection of birds at Beeston Hall 
were trophies of his own gun. Mr. E. T. Cooper never took an 
active part in the affairs of the Society. 
The Treasurer’s balance sheet is on the whole satisfactory, which 
is always a pleasant fact to announce. 
The thanks of the Society are duo to Professor Newton, Mr. J. H. 
Gurney, Mr. Hugh G. Barclay, and Mr. Geoffrey Fowell Buxton 
for additions to the Library. 
In accordance with the custom which has in the past been 
associated with very happy results, whereby your President in his 
annual address refers to some subject to which he has given special 
attention, I will take the present opportunity of making a few 
remarks upon one of the problems involved in the biologv of one 
branch of the great Fungus kingdom. It is over twenty years since 
I had first the honour of communicating a paper to you, which was 
deemed worthy of publication in your ‘Transactions.’ It was one 
of the first, if not the first paper of any importance which I had 
at that time written, and the thought has often occurred that, had 
you seen the writer, you would have felt inclined to have told him 
to wait a few years before he presumed to address you. It was, 
however, the outcome of seven years’ special work, and if you will 
pardon me making a personal remark, I should like even now, after 
the lapse of those twenty years, to thank you for your appreciation. 
I have often felt that the vitality of a Society like yours does not 
depend so much upon the great names you may have amongst your 
Presidents and Vice-Presidents as it does upon your younger 
members. Unless a man begins the study of any branch of natural 
science when he has the vigour of youth on his side, he is seriously 
handicapped. Youth is necessarily inexperienced ; youth may be 
rash in drawing conclusions; but youth is generally diffident, often 
