THE LOCAL FIELD-CLUBS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 293 



held weekly, and are devoted to the reading- of papers on natural 

 science, the exhibition of objects, and discussion on various matters 

 arising from , such exhibition. As a rule, about six papers are read 

 during each quarterly session, the other evenings being specially 

 devoted to the exhibition of specimens. The microscopical section 

 takes precedence on the second Tuesday in each month, the first being- 

 assigned to the committee, the tliird to the conchology section, the 

 last to zoology and botany, while geology takes the last Friday in each 

 month. The general meetings are held on the same evenings (Friday 

 excepted) after the other meetings. Each section has its own chair- 

 man and secretary, and at the meetings short papers are read on the 

 special subject of the section, and reports on local observations. It 

 is to the sections that we owe the local lists to which reference will 

 hereafter be made. 



The meetings are held at the rooms of the Midland Institute, 

 Avhere a natural science museum has been formed, and a useful 

 library of works on u-Uur.il history. Among other works of general 

 utihty in which the Society has been engaged we may mention its 

 efforts, which have been particdly successful, to obtain a rearrange- 

 ment of the objects in the Queen's College Museum, as also a proper 

 labelling of the plants in the Botanic Gardens, and the setting aside a 

 portion of the grounds for the special illustration of English botany, 

 towards the expenses of which a grant was made by the Society, 



The first volume of the ' Proceedings ' has just been issued, and is 

 now before us. At the very moderate price of 2s. 6d., it contains 110 

 nicely-printed pages, comprising " the substance of some of the papers 

 read during the year 1869, witl) a brief reference to otliers, which it is 

 either impossible now to reproduce, or unnecessary to present in an 

 extended form. The papers are on various subjects, and are less 

 noteworthy than the fifteen lithographic plates with which they are 

 illustrated, nearly all of which have been most creditably executed by 

 members of the Society. We could wish that local information was 

 somewhat more prominently brought forward, but a promise of this for 

 subsequent volumes is held out, and local lists of the Flowering Plants 

 and Ferns, Mosses, Lepidoptera, and MoUusca are given, so that we 

 must not complain. Of tlie first of these, fi88 species and varieties 

 are enumerated, and Carcx divtiha, C. Irpvigalo, and Arundo Culiima. 

 1/ronHs have been added since the ])ul)lication of the list. A ten-mile 



