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prince or peer in the world. I cannot but regard Epping
Forest as being, without exception, the most successful
example of recreative Nature that could be found.
Yet though, as I have said, there is nothing very start-
ling to call attention to, I would venture specially to urge upon
our members the importance of the papers that had been laid
before them in the past year. The papers cover a very wide
range of work, which was all thorough. Those who have favoured
the Club with papers and lectures have been able to call attention
to the results of most excellent research in botany, zoology,
geology, and archaeology, and other kindred subjects. As
we study the papers which were published in the Essex
Naturalist, all must be struck by the earnestness of them ;
everyone of them the fruit of long, hard, patient work. It is
as trite a remark as is possible to make, that genius, after all,
is, as the French so well put it, a long patience. If we
take as a specimen the paper of Messrs. Kennard and
Woodward's, " The Post-Pliocene Non-marine Mollusca of
Essex," I superficial people might say that was a small subject
to study ; but these small subjects require long patience, and
such memoirs show the variety and minuteness of work that
is needed in these days of modern science. If other papers on
the list of those printed during the year were taken there
would be found the same careful and thorough study, and each
might serve to enable members of the club and all other
students of natural history to realise how many subjects
there are in which very much work may be done, not only
by scientific men, but by those who have a little time to spare,
who need recreation, and who are willing to devote themselves
to the study of Nature, in some of these bye-paths of knowledge.
We have another specially interesting paper, which was brought
before us later on in the year, on the Entomostraca of Epping
Forest, by Mr. Scourfield, which is an example of the sort of
work that ought to be done far more than it is by those
who love science for its own sake, and are willing thus
to occupy spare time.
The life-histories of plants, the life-histories of the lower
forms of life, require an infinity of working out ; they need
patience and minute study, but they are one of those fields of
recreative intellectual work which is specially open to the
1 Vide Essex Naturalist, Vol. X, pp. 87-109.