10 MR darling's address. 



which I am sorry to have filled so inadequately, but beg to assure you 

 it is my misfortune, not my intentional fault ; and although not equal 

 to any of our scientific members in knowledge of the delightful sub- 

 jects which form the great attractions of this Society, yet I am not 

 wanting in zeal for its interests, and admiration of its objects. In re- 

 viewing the past year, it must be evident, that but few additions 

 to our knowledge of the botany of our district have been obtained ; nor 

 is this strange ; when so much had been accomplished, less and less 

 must annually be expected. This year has, however, been favourable 

 to the botanist, in as much as the long course of fine weather has 

 brought to perfection many of the little, modest flowers of our woods 

 and dells, which, in wet and ungenial seasons, scarce raise their sickly 

 heads. It might, too, have been expected, that it would have aff'orded 

 the entomologist very many interesting additions to his collection of 

 insects ; but other causes have prevented this. The severe winters 

 which, for three years, have visited our district, and the tremendous 

 flood of last autumn, combined to destroy the embryo of what this hot 

 summer would have brought to life and beauty ; and instead of the 

 season being rife with the rare and lovely specimens of our butterflies, 

 moths, and beetles, this summer has been extremely deficient in these 

 productions. Yet not altogether blank. Mr Selby has added a very 

 rare and beautiful moth to his collection, captured on the lawn at Twi- 

 zell by his daughter Mrs Tancred. This specimen, taken on the 14th 

 August, is the Catocula Fraxini, one of the rarest of the genus. Mr 

 Selby also has communicated to me the following notice : On the 23d 

 July 1842, when walking through a straggling whin covert, on the edge 

 of the moor to the west of Twizell, Mr Selby was surprised by flushirg 

 a woodcock from a small patch of ferns, within a yard or two of Ms 

 feet ; and scarcely had he satisfied himself that he was correct in che 

 bird, when another rose' from the same place, which he shot, and wnich 

 proved to be the male in tolerable feather and condition. No nest or 

 young were discovered, though they might easily have been oven'ooked 

 on the rough ground where the old birds were disturbed, and n* doubt 

 they had remained in the locality for the purposes of nidifica^ion, the 

 habitat being peculiarly favourable for such purposes, dry gound for 

 roosting and abundance of springy places at hand. Mr Seby states, 

 that this is the first instance of woodcocks remaining over summer in 

 his immediate neighbourhord. 



Although the finer kinds of our insects have been so ra;e, no scarcity 

 of some of the most destructive sort has been felt. Wasps have 

 abounded in prodigious numbers, and the turnip crop his been injured 



