200 
The Queensland Naturalist, 
VoL. L 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
By W. B. Colledge. 
THE IDEAL OF A FIELD NATURALIST. 
In vacating the office of President, I must express 
my indebtedness to many of our members for much in- 
formation given, and much forbearance exercised to my 
own shortcomings. The path of duty has been strewn 
Avith flowers of friendship, and my Avork lightened by 
genial sympathy and kindly appreciation. Our Club seeks 
to fulfil a very useful function. In the artificial conditions 
Avhich surround us, the main portion of our time is occupied 
in securing the means of subsistence. The office, the counter, 
the Avorkshop or the school claim the best portion of the 
day. The sunny hours are filled with routine Avork. And 
though that occupation ought to be suited to our abilities 
and congenial to our taste, so that it gives real pleasure 
and the satisfactory assurance that Ave are thus fulfilling 
a useful place in the great world’s Avork, yet this may absorb 
us too completely. The hand of routine may lie too heavily, 
and depress those rich and delicate aspirations Avhich link 
us to a larger life, and Ave become more isolated than we 
might otherAvise be. In our reflective moments the plaint 
of the poet comes home to us Avith some measure of truth ; — 
“ The Avorld is too much Avith us ; late and soon. 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ; 
Little AA^e see in Nature that is ours ; 
We have given our hearts aAA'ay, a sordid boon ! 
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
The Avinds that will be howling at all hours, 
And are up-gathered noAv like sleeping flowers , 
For this, for everything, Ave are out of tune ; 
It moves us not — Great God ! I’d rather be 
A Pagan suckled in a creed out-wo'rn ; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea. 
Have glimpses that Avould maUe nie less forlorn ; 
Have sight of Proteus, rising from the sea ; 
Or hear old Triton blow his Avreathed horn.” 
Against this tendency our Club is a safeguard. And 
if Wordsworth had been living noAv, he need not have 
_Avished for a reversion to old Pagan days, but only needed 
to become a live member of our Club to place him on 
high vantage ground and open up the objects upon which 
his heart was set. We have been reminded, time after 
time, in eloquent terms by Professor Skertchly that we are 
