SESSION 1896-97. li 



A vote of sympathy witli the Misses Bi-ett and the rest of 

 Dr. Brett's rchitives was then carried, on the proposition of the 

 President, in silence. 



ORcrNAKY Meeting, 10th December, 1896, at St. Albans. 



Dr. John Mokison, F.G.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Mr. Horace Tuppin, 68, Holywell Hill, St. Albans, was proposed 

 for membership of the Society. 



The following- lecture was delivered : — 



" Rambles by Forest, Field, and Flood." By James Saunders. 



The lecturer introduced his subject with the remark that the 

 love for natural-histoiy objects such as butterflies, birds, and 

 flowers, was the common heritage of humanity. This was most 

 pronounced in childhood, and in Nature's children — the savage 

 races. Whether these tastes were relics of the simple joys of 

 Eden, or whether they were survivals of the habits of our remote 

 arboreal ancestors, might be left to theologians and evolutionists 

 to decide. The capacity for the perfect enjoyment of these things 

 might vanish with the rolling years, but it might be replaced by 

 another kind of pleasure which resulted from knowledge. An 

 acquaintance with the life-history of our commoner species of 

 plants and animals, a knowledge of their geographical distribution 

 in space, and of their geological descent in time, would give an 

 additional interest to our country walks. It would fill the world 

 with acquaintances with whom we could hold mental converse, 

 and it would modify our views of the position which man occupies 

 in the scale of the universe. 



In illustration of the various points referred to, lantern views 

 were thrown upon the screen. Amongst the numerous subjects 

 touched upon were the fertilization of the wild arum, cowslips, 

 and primroses ; the habits of the early spring flowers of coppices 

 and woods, and many other denizens of our fields and hedgerows, 

 lleferences were also made to the alternation of generations as 

 exhibited by ferns, horsetails, and mosses. Illustrations were 

 given of the metamorphoses of butterflies and moths, and the 

 curious changes which characterize the development of amphi- 

 bians, especially as seen in frogs and newts. These remarks 

 led up to a brief description of some points in the life-history 

 of a group of organisms which link together the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms. These, the lecturer pointed out, also ex- 

 hibited phenomena analogous to alternation of generations, and 

 were known as Mycetozoa. 



The slides illustrating this part of the subject were not perhaps 

 so artistic as those exhibited earlier in the evening, but they had 

 the merit of being photographs of creatures found in the South 

 Midlands, most of them from Hertfordshire. In some instances 

 the Plasmodia of these organisms were prepared as lantern slides 



