iv Appendix No. 1.
good service. They can enlist both the philistine and the aesthete in the
cause, for it has a decided material and utilitarian, as well as a senti-
mental, aspect, and even the "practical man" will, in this regard, admit
its importance. In our own times we have heard of vast districts abroad
perverted from their native fruitfulness into comparatively droughty
wastes by the reckless felling of woods, the natural condensers and
distributors of life-giving moisture. We have "game-preservers" per-
sistently killing off the raptorial birds, and yet complaining that their
grouse and pheasants are diseased, and that their tenant-farmers grumble
at the increase of granivorous finches. We have poisoned our rivers and
streams with factory refuse, and the air with soot and acrid vapours ;
with the result that the fishes are dead, and the suburban gardener
mourns over his cankered roses and drooping lilies. These and a dozen
other evils and evil practices, are not necessary concomitants of, but
mere excrescences on, our modern life, and would soon be swept away
were the true relish and love for pure air, pure water, birds and flowers,
as deeply felt as they are freely written and prated about. To seek to
foster and extend this love for Nature unadorned is a worthy ambition
for a Club such as our own, and in most of the higher-class county
naturalists' societies it has evidently been a prominent point in the
estimation of their originators. Unfortunately the legitimate influences
which associations of the kind might be supposed to exercise, have been
too often allowed to fall into desuetude. In founding the Essex Field
Club this idea was most distinctly kept in view, and great stress was laid on
a rule of the Society relating to the preservation of natural objects and
antiquities, the opening sentence of which runs as follows (Rule xx):—
" The Club shall 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 birds and other
animals by wanton persecution; and shall use its influence with land-
owners and others for the protection of the same, and to dispel the pre-
judices which are leading to their destruction." No apology is therefore
needed for the publication of the following papers, and the Council
believes that in placing the interesting and valuable statements of our
members and others before the public in a collected form, it is fulfilling
one of its most important functions, and establishing a firm raison d'etre
for the Club. The papers unavoidably appear as a somewhat discon-
nected series, having been issued at several distinct periods, and pp. ix. to
xxv. have been in print for more than a year, although a large number
of proofs of that portion of the pamphlet were distributed in the spring
of 1882, as mentioned below.
The importance and pressing nature of the questions affecting the
welfare of Epping Forest have necessarily led to the expansion of that
section of the subject, but the Council of the Society is fully convinced
of the great interest attaching to such an experiment as that proposed by
Sir Fowell Buxton (see Report of Meeting held February 25th, 1882, page
ix.), and is fully prepared to aid in carrying it out in any way that may
be thought desirable. An edition of one thousand copies of the present
pamphlet is being printed, and an endeavour will be made by placing them
in the hands of those supposed to be interested in the subject to obtain
the co-operation of at least a considerable proportion of the inhabitants
of the parts of Essex in the immediate neighbourhood of the Forest. In
the Forest itself, no shooting, trapping, or birds'-nesting is now allowed
to be practised, and the good result is evident to all who have frequented
it during the last few years; birds of all kinds are rapidly increasing,
and certain species which were formerly confined to secluded parts of the
woodlands are now spreading over the whole Forest, and this in spite
of the vastly increased number of visitors.