ii
Journal of Proceedings.
dissemination amongst its members of information on natural science
and antiquities." Excursions, under skilful direction, to various
localities of interest to the naturalist and antiquary, will also be a main
object of the Club.
The Club will strongly discourage the practice of removing rare
plants from the localities where they are to be found or of which they
are characteristic, and of risking the extermination of rare birds and
other animals by wanton persecution ; it will also endeavour to use its
influence with landowners and others for the protection of the same,
and to dispel the prejudices which are leading to their destruction. In
like manner the Club will endeavour to cultivate a fuller knowledge of
local antiquities, historical, popular, and idiomatic, and to promote a
taste for carefully preserving the monuments of the past from wanton
injury.
Considering the fine field offered to the biologist in Epping Forest
and the surrounding country, it is certainly a matter of surprise that a
Society similar to that now in process of formation was not long since
founded. At any rate the promoters of the Club venture to claim for it
the cordial support of all students of the subjects comprised in the
scheme, as well as the approval of those willing to encourage the
pleasant, instructive, and healthful recreations of the amateur field
naturalist and antiquary.
The proposed subscription will be fifteen shillings per annum for
gentlemen and ten shillings for ladies. Persons residing beyond a
certain radius (say fifteen miles) from the head-quarters of the Club
will only be required to pay subscription of ten shillings and seven
shillings respectively. Persons joining the Club upon or within two
calendar months from its establishment will thereupon be considered
original members.
Should you approve of the objects of the Club, but be unable to
attend the meeting, I should be much obliged by your signing the
accompanying letter and returning it to me at your earliest convenience.
I shall then have much pleasure in adding your name to the list of
original members.—I am, yours faithfully,
Wm. Cole (Hon. Sec. pro tem.)
Several kindly and appreciative notices of the proposed Society-
appeared in London and provincial journals, and upwards of a hundred
ladies and gentlemen enrolled their names as original members before
the day fixed for the formation of the Club.] 
Saturday, January 10th, 1880.
A public meeting for the foundation of the Club was held at seven
o'clock in the evening in the rooms of the Art Classes, Buckhurst Hill