meetings was always acceptable. His energy even when an octogenarian was remarkable, and he was a fine example of the Old English gentleman. By the death of Mr. Thomas Cam, J.P., the Club has also lost one who rendered good service for many rears. His name occurs as far back as 1851. He was President in 1871, and filled the office of Treasurer from 1876 down to the date of his death. At the Annual Meeting in April, 1878, he presented to us a complete set of Nature-printed plates of the English ferns, which were then laid out for the inspection of the members, and excited much interest. For many years the soirées given by him at his residence in Hereford, during the Fungus Meeting, were largely attended, and were often times of pleasant and lively intercourse, as those who enjoyed his hospitality in October last can abundantly testify. I have also to mention the decease of Mr. J. H. Knight, who was President during 1880, the same year that he was Mayor of Hereford. In view of the gaps thus made in our ranks I would urge the necessity of endeavouring to secure an accession of useful members to take the places thus left vacant. I am happy, however, to state that so far there is no sign of decay or languishing, and that our numbers are well maintained. We must bear in mind, nevertheless, that our character as a club, gained as it has been by steady, hard work in the past, can only be preserved by real work in the future; and that we should be far more than a mere picnic club, enjoyable as our excursions may be, and I think they were never more so than last year. As our indefatigable Hon. Sec,, Mr. Moore, has furnished very full accounts of our five meetings, I need do no more than summarize briefly the work accomplished. We were favoured with fine weather throughout, had no broiling or soaking experiences, as in some former years, and we had without exception pleasant and interesting gatherings. All were well attended, unless some exception be made for the Fungus Foray, which did not prove so successful as sometimes, or so productive to the collectors. The last two or three seasons, for some reason not very clearly known, have been unfavourable for fungus growth. There are but few of our members who take much interest in Mycology, and had it not been that our illustrious visitors from a distance again favoured us by their presence, as well as by reading some excellent papers, I fear we should not have had much to record this year. With respect to our other meetings; you will remember that our first excursion was to Titley, Eywood, and Presteign, a part of the county but little previously explored. The well marked portion of Offa's Dyke near Titley station was interesting to some of us, who knew it in the extreme south of the county, as presenting a slightly different appearance. Whether it was originally intended as a boundary, or a fortification, it could have possessed but little value as a military earthwork. It probably marked a border line which was jealously guarded on both sides, and may have been a considerable protection against cattle marauders. Several rare plants were found in a boggy wood close by. The Buckbean, Marsh cinquefoil, and Marsh violet are all of them scarce in Herefordshire, probably on account of the few real bogs still left undrained. A new station for one of our scarcest plants has lately been found in this neighbourhood, Teesdalia nudicaulis. Though the botanists had a fairly good day, still the principal honours may be probably due to the archæologists. The paper read,

containing notes on the Harley family, was a good sequel and supplement to that contributed on the same subject at Brampton Bryan. Those describing Knill Church and Court took us back to the time of the Crusades, an inscription, on the arch of the front door of the Court, cut in Early English characters at the recent restoration of the building, having the date of 1187. The Parish Registers of Presteign commence in 1561. We were allowed to inspect them, and they furnish much valuable information. The detailed accounts of the ravages of the Plague are very striking. They appear at Presteign to have had three separate violent outbreaks. That in 1593 was specially severe. But in 1610, and again in 1637, it was excessively fatal in its effects, so much so that in one month alone one hundred and forty-eight deaths occurred in a population probably numbering not more than two thousand persons. At any rate the usual mortality was only about fifty per annum. And in 1593 considerably more than three hundred deaths were attributed to plague. They had thus three visitations in 44 years. At Chester, where in 1637 the grass is said to have grown knee-deep in the streets, and where there is now remaining an inscription on an old house recording its occurrence, it is said, that no less than seven separate outbreaks occurred in 93 years. I find no notice of the plague in 1593 in other places in Herefordshire, but in 1610 the Assizes were moved to Leominster because of the prevalence of the plague in Hereford. At Ross, the plague in 1637 appears to have been as bad as that in Presteign, for on a stone cross in the Churchyard the deaths from plague are recorded as numbering three hundred and fifteen, and to the present time there is a considerable area of adjacent ground still unused for burial. The same thing occurs in Leominster Churchyard. As far as I know, however, there is no written record, and the memory of it is only preserved by tradition. It would be interesting to inquire whether there are any further accounts of plagues preserved, either in parish registers, or other historical documents. Whitecross, near Hereford, is reported, I believe on good authority, to be a monument of perhaps the greatest pestilence recorded in history-the black death of 1347-8. A good deal of evidence has been obtained in Norfolk of its extraordinary prevalence and remarkable ravages in that county; but I have only seen slight allusions to its effects in this neighbourhood, nor have I read any account of the plague visiting Herefordshire since 1637, although what is called the great plague in London occurred in 1665, twenty-eight years later-the last time I believe it has attacked any part of Great Britain. Amongst other places of interest at Presteign, the Pinetum at Silia is specially remarkable as showing how many choice firs can be well grown if properly planted and sheltered. They are, however, rather too thickly planted in places, and there is a danger before long of some of the best specimens being spoilt by overcrowding, as the beauty of a tree is soon spoilt by any deformity. The richcoloured Japanese maples were of unusual size and luxuriance.

The Ladies' Day at Newland and Monmouth was another successful meeting. At Monmouth, you will remember, we were kindly ciceroned by Dr. Willis, who showed us the lions of the place, and at Newland we were not only hospitably entertained by Mrs. Bagnall-Oakeley who contributed a paper on the neighbourhood of Newland, but we also listened to an excellent paper descriptive

of Newland Church, by the Rev. W. Bagnall-Oakeley. The visit to St. Briavel's Castle and Church was also an attractive part of the day's programme.

Our excursion to Clifford and Hay Castles a month later enabled us fully to explore them, and by the help of appropriate explanations and descriptions to understand something of the history of these two important fortresses. Nothing could exceed the kindness of Canon Bevan and his wife and daughters in making us at home in their castellated residence.

The Geologists were glad at our next meeting to be conducted once more by Mr. G. H. Piper to the Ledbury Passage Beds, and it was clearly our own fault if we did not follow his lucid remarks, as he pointed out the position and characteristics of each in succession. On re-visiting the sites of the old camps, on the Herefordshire Beacon and Midsummer Hill, and searching again for the remains of the primeval dwellings of the prehistoric races who are supposed to have had a settlement in some of the secluded spots in the vicinity, we sadly missed the company and guidance of the late Rev. W. Symonds, of Pendock, whose enthusiasm used to impress itself upon us all, and who seemed almost able to bring up again, not only the actors of the long past, but the very scenes themselves in which they figured. I have certainly never known his equal as a guide, philosopher, and friend" to any party he might accompany. On the last occasion I had the pleasure of meeting him, he expressed a wish that the geology of our county might be still better worked up, as he felt quite sure that even the Old Red Sandstone would yield more than it had yet done in Herefordshire. As I am no geologist, I may be wrong in assuming that very little of a fossiliferous character has yet been discovered; though I well remember finding in a quarry near Leominster ripple marks, and what appeared to be the track of some living creature on the sand. The fact is, almost every branch of Natural History wants more enthusiastic workers and students, and it is certain that when once a study is entered upon with real zest, the idea that science is dry is at once dispelled. The pleasure which such pursuits give, and which they continue to give even after half a century's trial, is undoubtedly great, at any rate my own humble experience testifies to it. What are called the pleasures of life often pall, and by their monotony or repetition weary and bore us. Sir G. Cornewall Lewis said "life would be tolerable but for its pleasures." Not so, I contend, with the study of nature, for the further you go in it, the more you find of intense interest to attract you. I would, therefore, urge upon our youth especially, if only for the selfish plea of personal advantage, that they should make a diligent study of some department of Natural History or Science, feeling perfectly certain that they would never regret doing so. May I be allowed before I conclude to make a special appeal on behalf of Meteorology? I do not mean the mere mechanical work of measuring rainfall daily, though I am glad we have so many observers in Herefordshire, but I allude to a careful and thoughtful observation of all atmospheric phenomena. Meteorology has one advantage--that it is never out of season; nor does locality much matter. A few good instruments are of course required, but, as one of the best observers at the Meteorological Office said to me the other day, we want, above all, men who will think and work out the many

problems which our regular, systematic, and comparable observations now present to us for solution. Rapid progress has been, is being, made, and though some people seem almost inclined to deny that Meteorology is one of the exact sciences, or perhaps even a science at all—because, I presume, we cannot as yet predict the approach of a storm with the same precision that astronomers can the occurrence of a transit, an eclipse, or an occultation-still, I maintain that many of the laws which govern our atmosphere are already definitely and positively ascertained. We know, for instance, that the existence of cyclonic conditions within a certain area will produce certain well-known effects, and that as the storm advances, which it more frequently does in an easterly direction, the weather will have certain distinct characteristics in advance and also in the rear of the depression; that the wind will circulate round this in a known direction, and that its force will be in proportion to the steepness or otherwise of what are termed the barometric gradients. It is true that the course which any storm may take, or the rate of speed at which it will travel, is not exactly known, although a good guess can generally be made on both these points. The area affected is so widespread and the contributory causes so various and complicated, that we have to solve a very intricate problem indeed. Nevertheless every year improves the accuracy of our forecasts of coming weather, so that the last accounts show that a very fair degree of accuracy has been obtained already. It must be borne in mind that some hurricanes move with extreme rapidity, and suddenly impinging upon our western shores traverse our islands with remarkable quickness; it is not much wonder then that without the necessary knowledge of weather conditions over the Atlantic, a thousand miles at least to the westward of us, we should occasionally be surprised before there is time to give the needful warnings. Much attention is now being given by the Royal Meteorological Society to thunderstorms, particularly as regards the effects of lightning upon buildings and animals struck by it. Some interesting photographs were exhibited at one of our last meetings in London of lightning flashes. It is curious that the typical forked appearance usually given by artists has never been represented in any of the instantaneous photographs taken. The classification and nomenclature of clouds are also now receiving special notice. Our late neighbour, the Rev. Clement Ley, has been working for many years at the subject, and is now one of our leading authorities, and I believe is about to bring out a new treatise relating to it. It is perhaps not generally known to what extent clouds vary in height, the range being as much as ten miles or more. The differing appearances which the different forms of clouds present are remarkable, and it is very important that a knowledge of these should be more commonly possessed, especially by observers.

I should like to make another appeal for better accommodation in our Museum-room. A hundred pounds, or perhaps somewhat less, would furnish all drawers, cases, or tables required for collections which cannot now be properly displayed. I am aware that this sum cannot be spared from our regular funds, especially as we have enough material ready for another volume of Transactions, and I think that the publication should not be delayed longer than necessary.

The volume which has come into our hands to-day will, I think, be found to reflect great credit on the editor, and to contain a large variety of very interesting matter, and also to compare very favourably with previous ones. To revert for a moment to our Museum, we have such excellent premises, thanks to Mr. Rankin, that it is a pity, that for want of a comparatively small sum of money, we should allow our present unsatisfactory and imperfect arrangements to suffice, especially considering the other Museums in our neighbourhood, such as those of Ludlow, Worcester, Shrewsbury, &c. I can only say further that I shall be glad to contribute towards a special fund with the view of making our Museum worthy of our county. These must be my last words, except once more to thank you for your patience in listening to me so long.