86 THE COMING OF AGE OF
It is to be regretted that the contributions to plant-biology
have not been more numerous, but there are many reasons tell-
ing against the prosecution of this kind of work by the members
of local societies. It is a subject requiring close and constant
application and is thus generally beyond the powers of the
amateur botanist who is too busy with his ordinary occupations
to attend to such work. The necessary experimental investiga-
tions also demand much skill and originality as well as a certain
command of appliances which are not always available to the
amateur. Expert botanists belonging to local societies who
do work in this field generally publish their results through
some central learned society, and so the botanical work of field
clubs must necessarily be of the nature of species recording to a
preponderating extent. I still think, however, that the sugges-
tions made by Prof. Bayley Balfour at the Manchester Confer-
ence of Delegates of the Corresponding Societies of the British
Association in 1887 concerning the study of life-histories should
not be allowed to fall into oblivion in Essex (Essex Naturalist,
I., 200, 278). Among the few notes referable to botanical
bionomics is that by Messrs. Rosling and Miller Christy in 1884
on the transmission of "form" in heterostyled plants (Proc. IV.,
cxxvii.) and Mr. Joseph Clarke's "Hint on the Vitality of Seeds"
(Ibid., cxxix.).
The remarks made under Zoology with reference to collect-
ing apply with equal or even greater force to plants. The
subject of plant preservation was specially discussed at our
meeting on Oct. 31st, 1885, and a series of resolutions w;re passed
by those present which it is to be hoped will be always considered
as expressive of the policy of the Club throughout the future
(Proc. IV., clxxviii.; Essex Naturalist, II., 47, and report of
Easton Lodge meeting, Ibid. X., 179).
Ill—GEOLOGY, PALAEONTOLOGY, PHYSIOGRAPHY
AND SEISMOLOGY.
In this department we may claim to have carried out our
programme with marked success. I will venture to quote a
passage from an advanced proof of the article on the Geology of
Essex, written by Mr. Horace B. Woodward for the Victoria
History of the County :—