richer we shall hope to possess a separate upright case for the Flora, in a cupboard with sliding shelves.

GEOLOGY RECORDS.-Our Museum contains a good collection of local fossils, but curiously enough the fossils of the Woolhope limestone itself are but feebly represented. A good hunting in the quarries of Littlehope and Scutterdine, less than a mile distant from the Moon Inn at Mordiford, might possibly be rewarded with an addition which would be appreciated.

GRAVEL AND DRIFT EXPOSURES.-Much may yet be learnt by careful observation of drift exposures and of gravel beds. For example: In digging the foundations for Mr Merrick's house in Venn-lane, within two hundred yards of the County College, a fine specimen of Lituites giganteus of the Lower Ludlow formation was found. There were also found two curiously-shaped stones whose similarity, betokening artificial work, still baffles our experts.

We have, underlying our immediate neighbourhood, numerous deep gravel drifts. These should be frequently visited whenever exposed in excava tions made for foundations.

In our table cases representing local geology, thanks to the Rev. J. D. La Touche and the Rev. William Elliot, we are able to exhibit the continuous series of life upon our globe in the age of the Silurian system, and in these cases we see some instances of great mechanical and chemical changes produced by the powerful agents of pressure, fire, and water. The local development of this gradation of life will be seen, from the Geological Map in the Committee Room, to be confined to an area of about seven miles by four miles near Woolhope, and to but few other portions of our county, as near the Ledbury railway tunnel cutting, at Aymestrey, and the north-western parts near Kington, the remainder of our county representing Old Red Sandstone, in which a few fragments of fishes have been found.

In the table cases devoted to this branch we very much want an extension, so that the life of Molluscs of the present day may be represented by our land and freshwater shells. This would be less incongruous than the present system of our Paleontological specimens running into the butterflies, moths, and other ephemera of to-day.

BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS.-Thanks to Dr. T. A. Chapman, recently Superintendent of our County Asylum, we have a most enviable collection. As these are liable to suffer injury and great depreciation from loss in colour by exposure to light, the seclusion of the specimens in drawers is necessary for their careful preservation. The student can examine them conditionally, as they are of high value, and a negligent visitor may inadvertently leave a drawer unlocked, and at the mercy of the many visitors of untested morality, as has taken place, and may occur again. The presentation of this collection, mainly by Dr. T. A. Chapman, is one of the most generous donations we have received for our Museum. This subject of entomology might be considerably increased in value and interest by the addition of life-like groups of the larva and pupa stages of the butterflies and moths.

FISH.-Local fish are but poorly represented, although we boast of a

Royal Sturgeon, 8 feet 6 inches long, weighing 182lbs., which was caught by James Postans in the Wye, at the New Weir, six miles above Hereford, on May 31st, 1846, before railways interfered with the navigation of the river.

MOLLUSCS.-A very valuable collection of these invertebrates, limited to the shells of land and fresh water of the British Isles, now occupies a cramped position, which, under the supervision of Messrs. A. E. Boycott and Ernest Bowell, requires a more extended area for their display, especially as these gentlemen are desirous of placing in classified order the varieties found in Herefordshire, and have contributed to the Woolhope Club their first paper on the subject of "Land and Freshwater Snails of Herefordshire."

BIRDS.-Nobody can visit our magnificent collection of British birds without acknowledging that great artistic taste, and knowledge of their living habits and characteristics, has been displayed in their mounting; but there remains yet much to be done, such as an arrangement in artistic groups on ground, rocks, with water surroundings, or such objects in Nature with which the life of the bird in its natural habits was associated, in lieu of the artificial pedestals of the wood-turner, so unedifying to the eye of the naturalist.

BIRDS' EGGS.-By a judicious purchase the Museum has obtained a collection of eggs, and through the influence of Mr. W. E. de Winton, son of one of our members, we are placed under the patronage of the British Museum, from which we have already received a supply of eggs from their duplicates, which has filled up many a gap in our collection.

ARCHEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY.

But since a museum has for its objects the preservation of materials constituting the history of the earth and its inhabitants, we have not forgotten man himself, for we have a nucleus of objects of historical interest, illustrating the occupation of our country by our ancestors, and by our invaders the Romans. We have their manners and customs illustrated by implements and querns, their arts and domesticated habits by tesselated pavements, fragments of pottery, articles used in their hair and apparel, by pins and buckles, and a fairly representative collection of the coinage of the later Roman Emperors.

We have also a few implements of prehistoric man, such as axes of the Early Stone Age. We have been recently astonished by further evidence of the wanderings of prehistoric man, by the discovery of the distribution of flint flakes over a small area of the county north of Ledbury. They will probably be found in many other localities by an observer possessing a good eye for such objects.

From the above few observations you will see that the Museum possesses some valuable objects. The value of a Museum is tested by such an orderly arrangement of its contents, as not only to render it attractive and instructive to the general public, but to afford scientific students the means of studying their favourite branches of science.

For the proper carrying out of this object more Table Cases are required,

and a uniform system of labelling with correct classifications. The cost of each Table Case would be about £20, and might be obtained amongst us by a few subscriptions, so soon as we have recovered from the exhausting demands of the Diamond Jubilee year. We require three more Table Cases.

I have dwelt so long upon our Museum in the hope of stimulating some of our members to do more work in their own neighbourhood, in the endeavour to fill up the broken and missing parts of the series in the various branches of local Natural History.

You all know that our Club is far-reaching in its aims, spreading out its arms, like an octopus, to grasp anything that comes within its reach, and I ask your co-operation to enable us to utilise to greater advantage its miscellaneous character.

We shall add considerably to the diffusion of scientific knowledge if we render our Museum more worthy of its name and objects, and by the further development of the resources of Local Natural History in all its aspects, we shall make our Museum what it ought to be, the recognised headquarters of all the scientific activity of the district.

It behoves me to inform you that the income for conducting both the Free Library and the Museum combined is limited, being derived solely from the penny rate, and is barely sufficient to cover the every-day working expenses of the Reading Room, Library, and Reference Library, irrespective of the requirements of the Museum. The usefulness of the Museum is thus necessarily limited. Its success demands increased means for its support by assistance from other sources.

The Honorary Curators of the Museum are :

Botany-Rev. Augustin Ley.

Conchology-Mr. E. W. Bowell and Mr. A. E. Boycott.

Entomology-Mr. E. W. Bowell, Mr. A. E. Boycott, Dr. T. A.
Chapman, and Mr. T. Hutchinson.

Geology-Rev. Preb. Wm. Elliot, Rev. J. D. La Touche, and Mr.
G. H. Piper, F.G.S.

Ornithology-Mr. W. E. de Winton and Mr. James B. Pilley.
Local Antiquities-Mr. H. Cecil Moore.

"Well-ordered stones make architecture, well-ordered ideas make logic, well-ordered facts make science."-Prof. Blackie.

In the year 1891 the Rev. J. O. Bevan laid before our members certain useful subjects of scientific observation, occupying pages 211 to 220 of our Transactions. Of the many subjects therein presented to our notice, the devotion of the Club seems to have been chiefly bestowed upon one, namely, the Archæological Survey of the county. Our warmest thanks are due to Mr. Bevan and Mr. James Davies for their many years devotion to this useful as well as interesting work, not forgetting Mr. F. Haverfield, who has revised the whole and summarised the mounds and earthworks, and the ancient roads in

two appendices. Mr. Haverfield has exhibited himself a wise student and tutor. A deliberate consideration of his calm judgment, based as it is upon an accurate and extensive knowledge of Romano-British history, so far as it has been revealed to us by numerous authorities, has made us more prudent; our consciences have pricked us that we have been enthusiastic and too rash in accepting the explanations and interpretations of later writers, which have suffered the penalty of getting exaggerated into traditions of earlier inhabitants, and we have been led into the wisdom of retaining an open mind upon many so-called traditions of the ancient history of Herefordshire, until further revelations produced by discoveries, especially by excavations, afford us a more safe and sure justification for our opinions. I have been asked-Can you not signalise your presidential year by carrying out some excavations? To this I reply-If proprietors of land will only give us an invitation, we will, after consultation with a committee of aid of experts from the Society of Antiquaries, place them in a position to carry out their desires in the most favourable manner.

We have the Archæological Survey of Herefordshire in our hands. It is the duty of every member to inspect the localities most familiar to himself, and to report without delay to Mr. James Davies, at 132, Widemarsh-street, Hereford, any omissions and any errors, so that the corrections may be made known by publication in our Transactions. At the same time we call upon any member who has any material of the Medieval age to report from his district to communicate it in the authorised manner upon the blank form of Return, which he can obtain upon application to Mr. James Davies. By so doing he will expedite the publication of the Mediæval Survey of our county.

Now comes the question-How can we utilise to our best advantage the suggestions of the Rev. J. O. Bevan? A re-perusal of his pigeon-boxed paper, rescued as it were from the dead-letter office, combined with an intelligent grasp of the system of work so admirably elaborated by the committees of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, will assuredly animate some of our two hundred and twenty members to work in one or other of the many fields of science open for their investigation. For the benefit of members who have recently joined our ranks a few observations will now be made explanatory of the work yearly undergoing careful research in the various sections.

CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES.

Yearly we send to the Secretary of Corresponding Societies of the British Association a report of the papers published by our Club, and it is an honour to us that, ever since our association with that body, we have been yearly retained on the list of Societies in Union. This affiliation is a specific acknowledgment by the British Association of the position of our Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club. The papers written by our members are classified, and a list is printed in the annual report of the Association, giving in its proper section reference to the author, the title of his paper, and the page on

which it will be found in the volume of Transactions of the Club. The work of our Club is thus brought before the notice of the workers of science throughout the world, seeing that there are few National and Scientific Libraries in which the reports of the British Association are not to be found. To meet the demands of those who are desirous of consulting the papers themselves, two copies of our publications are preserved for reference in the Offices of the British Association in Burlington House, Piccadilly, one copy is always sent to the British Museum Natural History Department, Kensington, in addition to the five copies always sent by the Copyright Act to the following: The British Museum; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the University Library, Cambridge; the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh; and the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.

In order to derive the full advantages of this our connection we send annually a representative to the Conference of Delegates, where matters relating to the Corresponding Societies are discussed, and questions bearing on the promotion of more systematic observations and plans of operation, and of greater uniformity in the mode of publishing results are considered. The subjects for investigation, their nature and object, and the method of conducting them are announced.

Our delegate, on his return home, forwards his report, upon which it is desirable that committees of our members be formed to arrange and carry out such investigations as can be locally applied. If further information be wanted, communication can be made direct with the Committees of the Association, a list of which, with the names of the Secretaries, is appended to the official report of the Conference. I would urge upon our Club collectively, and our members individually, the importance of taking part in the work of as many of the subjects as may be found practicable in our district.

By the establishment of committees a great stimulus to local work will be given, to the benefit of the Association and especially of ourselves, and the number of communications will be materially increased. Thus our officials will be relieved from some of their anxiety in the deficient supply of papers for our meetings and our annual volume of Transactions. The ponderous annual report of the British Association is on our shelves, and if we refer to the sixty subjects for investigation proposed at the Liverpool meeting last September, 1896, we shall be able to find some in which our local knowledge and enterprise can render assistance. Some of the Committees receive grants from the funds of the Association :

1. The Application of Photography to the Elucidation of Meteorological Phenomena, with Mr. G. J. Symons as its Chairman, received a grant of £10. Secretary. Mr. A. W. Clayden.

2. Seismological Observations. Chairman, Mr. G. J. Symons. This subject was considered of such importance, owing to the recent discoveries, as already previously mentioned, of the value of the Seismograph, as to receive a grant of £100. Secretaries, Dr. C. Davison and Prof. J. Milne.

3. The Committee to investigate the Erratic Blocks of the British Isles