1 . Address to the Members of die Bcrivickshire Naturalists' Club. By 

 GEORGE JOHNSTON, M.D. (Road at its first Anniversary Meet- 

 ing, held at Coldstream, September 19. 1832.) 



GENTLEMEN, 



BEFORE I leave the distinguished station which, by your favour, I 

 hold in this Club, you will permit me to take a cursory view of what has 

 been done, during this the first year of its existence, towards forwarding 

 the objects for which we principally associated ourselves ; a more accurate 

 knowledge, to-wit, of the natural history and antiquities of Berwickshire 

 and the adjacent parts of the neighbouring counties : and I am induced 

 to do this, not because our labours have elicited much of interest or im- 

 portance ; not because I can hope to give any additional impulse to your 

 zeal, or direction to your future pursuits ; but that I may, as far as in me 

 lies, set an example to my successors in this chair, to give you, at each 

 succeeding anniversary, a summary of the communications and researches 

 of the members during the year ; so that the results of these may not be 

 lost, and that their bearings and connections may be pointed out. The 

 review, also, may serve to remind us of those departments of the natural 

 history of the county which have received the least notice and illustra- 

 tion, and where, of course, our inquiries may be most usefully directed 

 in future. 



Birds. At our meeting in July, it was mentioned that a male bird 

 of the rose-coloured ouzel (Pastor roseus) had been shot at West Ord, 

 in the vicinity of Berwick, on the 1 3th of that month, by the Rev. Mr 

 Campbell. No previous instance of the occurrence of this beautiful bird 

 in North Durham is known ; and very few instances of its occurrence 

 in the north of England are on record 1 . It is a summer visitant, com- 

 ing to us at uncertain intervals ; compelled, perhaps, to make these parts 

 by the force of some contrary storms : and, in this respect, it resembles 

 another bird, the Egyptian goose (Anas cegyptiaca), a small flock of 

 which is recorded to have visited the Tweed, at Carham, in the begin- 

 ning of February last 2 . This flock, as is conjectured by Mr Selby, may 

 probably have made its escape from Gosford, the seat of the Earl of 

 Wemyss, upon the Firth of Forth, where numbers of these birds are 

 kept in the artificial pieces of water 3 . 



1 Mr Selby has a specimen, shot near Bamborough ; and two others have been taken 

 not far from Newcastle. (Trans. Newc. Soc., L 263.) It is singular that these were all 

 males. 



Kelso Mail for Feb. 6. 1832 ; Mag. Nat. Hist. voL v. p. 565. 



3 Trans. Newc. Soc., i. 290. Five were seen on the Fern Islands in April 1830 ; and, 

 in March 1831, a female was killed near Berwick. (Ibid.) 



