xii Appendix No. 1. 
across any of them, and as a matter of fact I believe very few jays have 
been caught. [Laughter.] 
Dr. Cooke said that when he heard of this subject being brought before 
the Club it struck him as an excellent opportunity to nudge the elbows of 
the Conservators, and tell them a little of what they as naturalists thought 
about the conditions under which the protection of public property was 
being pursued, not only in Epping Forest, but in other places, to the 
great detriment of those individuals who went puddling in dirty pools to 
find something to study under the microscope. It was a complaint which 
had been urged in every instance in which any amount of land had been 
conserved for the use of the public. In every instance it had been to a 
large extent destroyed for naturalists, especially those who devoted 
themselves to the study of minute life. The reason of this might perhaps 
be traced to ignorance on the part of those who had the control of 
these works rather than to any wish to injure the wild animals of minute 
dimensions. They did not measure by inches and feet the animals whose 
cause they had to advocate. [Hear, hear.] He was not about to propose 
that they should go to Parliament for a Bill for the Preservation of Bugs 
and Beetles. [Laughter.] But he did propose that they should try to 
prevail upon gentlemen who were placed in the position of Mr. Johnston 
—he was sorry that he should have been compelled to leave before he 
could whisper a word in his ear—he thought they should try to give them 
some little information about the work that was being done. To come 
down to detail. The organisms that he specially advocated were those 
which were as small, or smaller than a pin’s head. These were the 
organisms that were most injured by the usual plans for the preservation 
of land for public purposes. They were also the class of organisms 
which were now exciting the greatest amount of interest among naturalists, 
who were seeking to solve the problem of life very much through the 
study of the life-history of the lower and more minute forms. And hence 
every minute organism which was found in a puddle might teach a great 
lesson [hear, hear], and a lesson which we could not learn by staring 
at a lion or rhinoceros. There were in London, as well as in Essex, 
a large number of people associated together in societies for the study of 
forms of microscopical life. He had the honour to be the president 
of one society of 200 members, and the vice-president of another which 
contained over 600 members ; and the general feeling amongst those, 
nearly a thousand individuals, was that every year they had to go further 
from London in search of the organisms they studied. The excursion 
parties of tbe Quekett Club had found it no longer of any use to go to 
Wimbledon Common in quest of minute life—the place had been given 
over to the tender mercies of the volunteer and drain-maker. Hampstead 
Heath v r as another instance—and a very good instance—of a heath which 
had been preserved for the benefit of the Cockney ; but it had been now 
nearly destroyed for the purposes for which the London naturalist 
particularly desired it to be preserved. Then Battersea was a third 
