72 Northumberland Nat Hist. Society's Transactions, 



its inhabitants, and to instil and cherish a taste for natural 

 science among them ; and it seems very obvious that this end 

 can be accomplished only very partially, unless the papers 

 are printed in a form which may admit of their being sold at 

 a price that will at least not necessarily narrow their circula- 

 tion. We are anxious to press this upon the attention of 

 directors of provincial societies iln general ; for while we enter- 

 tain high notions of the utility of such institutions, we are also 

 fully convinced that their usefulness in one respect is marred 

 and nullified by the prevalent practice of making their pub- 

 lications a sealed book to all, save to their own members, or 

 to the rich, few of whom care for these things. How much 

 the Linnean Society has erred in this respect is notorious, and 

 is a matter of lamentation to many who know how much of 

 valuable matter is locked up in their Transactions ; and we 

 regret that the Newcastle Society follows such a bad example. 



Of the papers in zoology, we would particularise Mr. Win- 

 gate's notice of C5'gnus Bewick?/, a new species of swan, 

 which he was the first to distinguish from the common wild 

 swan ; we say the first, because some have attempted to rob 

 him of this merit, and, in spite of fact and dates, to assign it 

 to Mr. Yarrell. Mr. Selby has well illustrated this Cygnus 

 in the same volume, which contains also, from the pen of this 

 celebrated ornithologist, a notice of Cypselus alpinus, and 

 ikfergus cucuUatus as natives or visiters of Britain; and a 

 complete catalogue of the birds hitherto met with in the 

 counties of Northumberland and Durham. Mr. Alder's paper 

 on the land and freshwater testaceous Mollusca found in the 

 vicinity of Newcastle is excellent, and includes the descrip- 

 tions of two or three new species. A notice of Falco ^pivorus, 

 by the Hon. H. T. Liddell ; of ^alse'na 56ops, by Dr. John- 

 ston ; and some remarks on the curious mechanical feats of a 

 small spider, by the Rev. Mr. Turner, complete the list of 

 zoological papers. 



In botany Mr. Winch is the only contributor. In the first 

 volume, this well-known botanist gives some interesting re- 

 marks on the distribution of the indigenous plants of North- 

 umberland and Durham, as connected with the geological 

 structure of those counties; and a Flora, as a catalogue 

 perhaps the most perfect which has been yet published in this 

 country, of the same district, occupies what has been pub- 

 lished of the second volume. 



The papers illustrative of the geology of the counties of 

 Northumberland and Durham are numerous, and it may be 

 useful to some of our readers to have a list of them : — 1. No- 

 tice of a Whin Dyke in the Fenham Division of Benwell 



