96 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
extending to two days, in addition to one instructive meeting in the
Insect Galleries of the British Museum. Wanstead, Colchester,
Laindon Hills, Upminster, Bishop's Stortford, and Maldon, have
been visited, besides which Epping Forest was the scene of a Spring
Ramble and the annual Fungus Foray. It is in this direction, more
perhaps than in any other, I look for greater appreciation of the
usefulness of such an Association as ours among the residents in our
county.
The past work of the Club has abundantly illustrated the quite
unsuspected richness of Essex in the various objects that come with-
in the scope of the Club's enquiries, and I think we are all suffi-
ciently convinced of the advantages and importance of the pursuits
we were instituted to foster. If we cannot bring the interesting
objects awaiting our investigation to a single focus, we must try to
follow them to their homes in what may as yet be considered out of
the way places, and see that no fellow worker is left without
our pale, and that no feature of our county is suffered to remain in
the darkness and obscurity hitherto enwrapping it. Our duty is to
foster a love of natural history and archaeology, and we know that
many additions to the knowledge of the natural history of our county
are awaiting us in all directions, not only in the unfrequented bye-
paths, but also in the ways well trodden by former explorers.
Epping Forest has been a happy hunting ground for fungologists
and entomologists for generations, but the additions made at our
Fungus Forays to the 338 species of the larger fungi known up to
1881 to occur there, show how much was left undiscovered, and it
is the opinion of good authorities that much yet remains to be done
even in this direction. This annual Fungus Foray is an institution
of ours that I trust may long continue. Cryptogamic botany is now
becoming fashionable in the north, especially in Scotland, if we may
judge by the pages of the "Scottish Naturalist;" in the south it
has apparently been greatly neglected, but it is to be hoped that
some of our members will profit by what they have seen and heard
at the nine meetings already held, and begin to work systematically
at the mycological flora of the county. The results already accom-
plished show the richness of the field, and the mosses, lichens, sea-
weeds and micro-fungi of Essex will surely afford work for all for
years to come, not to speak of the many important biological
problems in connection therewith which confront the earnest
student, and cry out aloud for solution.