NATURALISTS SOCIETIFS. 159 



Maynard family, the ancestors of Lady Warwick. A full description, with 

 plates of the more notable monuments, will be found in Mr. Chancellor's 

 great work The Ancient Sepulchral Monuments of Essex. At Easton the party 

 was met by Mr. John F. Rogers, Agent to the Easton Estate, and the drive 

 through this beautiful park was much enjoyed. Herds of fallow deer were 

 seen, and some remarkable trees were pointed out. Two in particular, an 

 oak and a hornbeam, were measured by Mr. Rogers, and the dimensions are 

 worth recording : — 



Oak Tree in Easton Park. 



Height from ground to the crown of the butt . . 24 feet. 

 Girth at bottom of tree .. .. .. 42 ,, 



,, 3 ft. from ground ... . . 33 ,, 



,, 8 ft. ,, .. .. 30 ,, 



Hornbeam Tree in Easton Park, 



Height from ground to crown of butt . . 10 feet. 



Girth at bottom of tree .. .. .. 34 ,, 



,, 5 ft. from bottom . .. 27 ,, 



,, 10 ft. ,, .. .. 34 ,, 



Prof. Meldola had been staying at Easton Park Cottage and had photo- 

 graphed both these trees, and we are thus enabled to give illustrations of 

 them. It is much to be desired that members photographically inclined 

 would follow the President's example, and thus insure the preservation of 

 pictures of interesting trees which may be noticed in various parts of the 

 County. 



The drive was continued to the ancient village, of Dunmow, where 

 luncheon awaited the party at the " Saracen's Head " hotel. 



The Conference was quite arcadian, taking place in the pretty little 

 garden of the hotel. Prof. Meldola took the chair. Unfortunately, but few- 

 members of " East Anglian" Societies other than the Essex Field Club were 

 present. Mr. Southwell, F.Z.S., and Mr, H. Scherren, F.Z.S., well repre- 

 sented the Norfolk and Norwich Society, but no official member of the 

 Ipswich Scientific Society attended. 



Mr. W, Cole re-called what had passed at the first Conference held at 

 Witham on July 23rd, 1898,' and advocated the initiation of some scheme of 

 " Systematic Biological and Pre-historic Archaeological work in East Anglia," 

 He alluded to the close connection of the three counties of Norfolk, Suffolk 

 and Essex, from the point of view of their Natural History and Geology, and 

 the similarity of the coast-line. The Essex and the Norfolk Societies had 

 done a great deal of faunistic work, of value to the student of geographical 

 distribution, but there was still ample opportunity for further investigations, 

 pursued year by year. This was especially the case with respect to the 

 marine zoology of those regions of the North Sea bordering the counties, 

 where of late years there had been considerable changes in the fauna. These 

 should be carefully recorded, as also should be the variations in the coast-line. 

 He was not alluding to the higher and more difficult work of biological 

 investigation into the life-histories of the marine organisms of the North Sea. 



I A full report was printed in the Essex Naturalist, vol. x., pp. 360 — 368. 



