170 
MIDLAND UNION OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
energetic enough to attend to an immense variety of local objects of 
interest otherwise so difficult of access as to be passed unheeded. 
Not only so, but members of the various societies who have been at 
pains in the preparation of lectures, have redelivered their papers 
before other societies, and have thus been able, with but little extra 
personal exertion, to assist in extending the sphere of usefulness of 
the Union, help out the programmes of their neighbours (and all 
secretaries present will bear me out in saying how invaluable such 
assistance is), and finding their exertions on behalf of scientific 
knowledge not cast aside with the one occasion for which they were 
expended, have discovered in this an additional incentive to more 
earnest and better work than they might otherwise have deemed it 
necessary to employ. 
Further than this, the Council of the Union, with a view to the 
encouragement of original research, provides an annual prize open for 
competition to every member of the affiliated societies, which 
consists of a medal (of the value of £10), struck in gold or bronze at 
the option of the successful candidate, and bearing the effigy of the 
late ever to be admired Mr. Charles Darwin, F.B.S., by whose 
permission (granted but a short time before he was personally lost to 
us) it is called the Darwin Prize. Founded in 1880 it was gained in 
1881 by Edward Wilson, F.G.S., for Geology; in 1882 by Professor 
A. M. Marshall, D.Sc., M.A., M.D., of Owens College, Manchester, 
and W. P. Marshall, M.I.C.E., for a joint paper on Zoology, in which 
they give to science a vast amount of new and important information 
respecting the Pennatulida, and to these two last-named gentlemen, 
at the conclusion of my address, I shall have the honour of presenting 
the gold medal in the name of the Midland Union. 
The subject selected for 1884 is Botany, and as the Union is rich 
in botanical specialists we may anticipate a keen and more than 
usually interesting contest. 
These few remarks, scanty as I feel them to be, should suffice to 
indicate the value of the Union, and to induce the societies not yet 
enrolled and those^ individuals who have not joined one or other of 
the local societies, or subscribed to “ The Midland Naturalist,” at 
once to do so, not altogether for the mere personal advantages they 
may actually derive, but for the public good and the encouragement 
of an important and valuable method of promoting the most useful of 
all knowledge, that which is based on purely scientific principles. 
I shall now, leaving the general objects of the Union, venture to 
draw your attention to its local aspect, especially as regards our 
present meeting place, “ Tamworth,” a spot that though it maybe 
numerically small and insignificant is yet historically mighty 
and replete with a more than usual interest on account of 
the time over which its history extends, and the consequent 
changes and vicissitudes that, like the fleeting shadows of summer 
clouds, have darkened for a moment its prospects only to enhance the 
brilliancy of the sunshine which followed in their train. Situated on 
