I52 THE CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES COMMITTEE 



at the mouth of the river Crouch in November, 1883 (Zool. 1884, 

 p. 27). It was claimed by Sir Henry Mildmay as lord of the 

 manor, and on legal proceedings being taken to settle the 

 question of ownership, a verdict was found in his favour. In 

 October, 1887, another specimen of Rudolphi's Rorqual was 

 taken in the Thames off Tilbury, an account of which was given 

 by Mr. Walter Crouch, with an illustration, in the Essex 

 Naturalist, 1888, pp. 41-46. 



THE 



CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES' COMMITTEE 



OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 



London, 1905. 

 REPORT OF THE CLUB'S DELEGATE.- 



F. W. RUDLER, I.S.O., F.G.S., Vice-President E.F.C., Secretary of the Conference 



of Delegates. 

 [Read November 2^th, 1905.] 



IT is usual for the Delegates from the Local Societies to meet 

 in Conference during the Session of the British Association, 

 at its place of meeting. But as the Association met this year in 

 South Africa, it could hardly be expected that the Delegates 

 would assemble there; and it was consequently suggested by 

 Mr. Whitaker, F.R.S., the Chairman of the Corresponding 

 Societies' Committee, that a Conference should be subsequently 

 held in London — a suggestion which met with the approval of 

 the Council of the Association. Accordingly a Conference was 

 held on Monday and Tuesday, October 30 and 31, at the Rooms 

 of the Linnean Society. It w r as satisfactory to find that it was 

 attended by nearly thirty delegates, representing places as 

 distant as Belfast, Perth, Glasgow, and Paisley. The Conference 

 was presided over by Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S., and was 

 in every way a most successful meeting. 



The Chairman, in opening the Conference, delivered an 

 address, in which he dealt sympathetically on the value of the 

 work done by many of our local societies, but deplored the 

 tendency in certain quarters to allow the picnic element and 

 other sources of popular attraction to assert undue influence. 

 With regard to the evening meetings, he referred, not wnthout 

 approval, to the practice of making a special feature of 

 " exhibits," and threw out the suggestion that papers on the 

 unsolved problems of science might be found extremely useful 



