president's address. 95 



Glow-worm (wliich is not often met witli in this part of the 

 country) in the fields between Benton Station and Killingworth, 

 on the evening of the 12th January, 1859, and that he had been 

 informed by Mr. Scott, of Killingworth, that he had observed 

 several in the same place in the latter part of last summer. 



Mr. W. H. Brown, our local Secretary at North Shields, 

 communicates that he has observed. 



At North Shields, on the 13th January, the Pansy in flower. 



„ „ 14th „ Wallflower. 



yj „ 20th ,, Blue Hepatica. 



J, „ 21st ,, Christmas Rose. 



i) „ 22nd ,j Stock. 



„ i, 23rd „ White Rock Cress.. 



i, „ 26th „ Red Primrose. 



,; „ 31st „ duckweed. 



„ „ 31st „ Auricula. 



Rose trees were in leaf, at Tynemouth, by January, the 20th. 

 The district was subsequently, and particularly during the 

 latter part of April, visited by easterly gales, which stripped the 

 trees of their young leaves. In several instances, in Northum- 

 berland, the eggs of the rooks were pitched out of the nests, such 

 was the vibration of the trees occasioned by the blast, and the 

 green fields resumed a sterile appearance ; notwithstanding 

 which the Hawthorn blossom is now abundant, and it was seen 

 near Newcastle ten days ago, the 10th May. 



An unusually brilliant Aurora Borealis was visible on the 

 evening of Saturday, the 4th of December, 1858. Mr. Mennell 

 contributed a short notice of it to one of our local prints, in 

 which he states that, when he first saw it, at about eleven 

 o'clock, a mass of deep crimson rays shot up from the nor- 

 thern horizon, and was met by another equally brilliant mass 

 of pale yellowish-white rays rising from the west. These 

 culminated in a sharply-defined point of intensely brilliant crim- 

 son immediately overhead. After a time however, the whole of 

 the rays became crimson, near the horizon, getting paler as they 

 ascended ; and instead of meeting in a well defined point, they 

 terminated overhead in a confused mass of serpentine rays of 



