108
The President's Address.
it has doubtless come under your notice. Those of our
members who agree in this decision cannot but rejoice that
the press generally, as well as many large and influential
bodies, have also expressed their disapproval of this inter-
ference with the Forest, and for my own part I can only
give utterance to the wish that the Railway Company may
be led to reconsider their plan, or to alter the route of the
projected extension so as to leave our Forest untouched.
The remarks made at the commencement of this address
with reference to our lack of active science workers will, I
trust, be taken in the spirit in which they were offered—
the desire to see the Club doing good work and taking a
high position among such societies. We are still in our
infancy, and too much ought not to be expected from us at
first starting. Still, in view of our increasing energy, it is
not too soon to begin to consider some of the numerous
lines of useful work which we might take up, and I will
therefore in conclusion offer a few suggestions which may
possibly serve to hasten the production of some of the more
solid contributions to science which it should be our ambi-
tion to see emanate from this Club.
In the first place, as regards local catalogues of animals
and plants—our County Directory—why should we not
commence this next season upon some of the better known
orders of insects, such as Lepidoptera or Coleoptera? Sup-
posing we take the former, as having been the more exten-
sively worked at. A large amount of material already
exists scattered throughout the various British entomo-
logical publications, and we should have to commence our
list by systematic compilation. That done, we can begin
to collect records from our own members, many of whom
have long collected in the county; and I would suggest that
a circular should be sent round, not only to our members,
but also to all entomologists who may have worked our
district, asking for their assistance. In the case of the
rarer species, the locality, date of capture, and name of
captor should be given, together with references if the
capture has already been published. Every care should be
taken to make our first list a typical one, and workers at