27 



fruit growers do not inskt on jays being preserved in the woods near their plantations ; they have no 

 truer friends. A pair of jays will suck the eg-s laid by every blackbird and thrush in the early 

 spring over a very large extent of cover, and it is these birds which do the most damage in fruit 

 pUntations. Unfortunately, jays cannot discriminate between game b"-ds and other birds eggs. 

 The penalty for destroying game birds' eggs is by law very severe, and they suffer accordingly. 

 Whatever may be the case near towns, robins, hedge-sparrows, wrens, greenfinches, and chafEnches 

 are not getting scarcer a few miles out in the country. The chaffinches and greenfinches do a lot of 

 damage to ripe hops by picking them to pieces to get at the seeds. I often see the ground under the 

 hop plants quite covered with bracts, and I have several times lately caught the ubiquitous sparrow, 

 or avian rat of Tegetmeier, doing the same mischief. ^ „ . , .^, . . t i, v j r o„o—i 



Some of our larger animals are slightly on the increase, I think; the otter I have heard of several 

 times and the badger is fairly common. The number of stoats, weasels, and hedgehogs m a district 

 seems to depend mainly on the amount of game preserving that goes on, and on the competence or 

 iocompetence of the gamekeepers. Eats. I am afraid, are largely on the increase. 



Much damage to various crops was done during the season by aphides, particularly to hops, 

 beans and peas. The hop aphis arrived in swarms during a single night in June, coming with an 

 E«t wind. As very few eggs were laid on sloe and damson twigs during the previous autumn, it 

 makes one think that they must have come across Channel. ' 



It was a record year for slugs, which made it very difficult for gardeners and farmers, gardeners 

 especially, to raise many of their crops. , „ , » i- i c „ j „t . 



On February 22nd the rain which fell in the evening was full of fine partic es of mud of a 

 reddish colour; this was noticed over the whole of the South of England Experts seem to have 

 agreed that it must have come from a dust storm which originated in the. African deserts. Below i 

 will give the analysis of it which appeared in Nature of March 5th :— 



Organic matter, loss on ignition °o'* 



. ... ... 45"D 



13-6 



2-4 



Silica 



Iron oxide and alumina 



Magnesia... 



Unclassified 



20 



1000 



In July there were two separate days on which a " black " rain fell at Waltham I examined 

 some under the microscope which had been caught in a clean paU, and found it fall of a very small 

 dark unicellular alga, the cells being quite round. ... 



Wr John Marten, of Bredhurst, near Chatham, has for some years been studying our mosses. 

 He will be much obliged to anyone who will post him any specimens they may find, and will be 

 pleased to name them. . , , . • i, i 



Local botanists might do some useful work for the Society by studying specially several groups 

 of plants which have not been hitherto very carefully worked out for our County, e.j., the Euphrasias, 

 the Bartsias. the Violas, the Veronicas, and the Salicornias. ,.,,,. , . , 



A late frost in the spring very seriously injured the fruit crop prospects, which afterwards turned 

 out to be one of the smallest ever known. 



W. H. HAMMOND. 



Canterbury. 



REPORT OF THE DELEGATE TO THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



To the President and Council of the Bast Kent Natural History Society. 



Gentlemen,— I have the honour to report that, according to your instructions, I attended, as your 

 Deleo-ate the meetings of the Conference of Delegates of Corresponding Societies of the British 

 Association, at the recent meeting (September 9-17) of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, at Southport. , , , ^ •,.. it 



(The International Meteorological Congress met at the same time, and brought with them, 

 apparently, a collection of the most abominable types of weather that could be got together from the 

 slums of the Universe). ,„, .■ „ ^, t. -j .. /c- 



The keynote of the British Association Meeting this year was Education. The President (Sir 

 Norman Lockyer) dealt exhaustively with the question of State aid to scientific and technical educa- 

 tion in his address, and most of the Presidents of Sections either made some branch of scientific 

 education the subject of their address or alluded to it in the course of their remarks. 



Under those circumstances it was not surprising that the Conference of Delegates became infested 

 with the prc^vailing epidemic and the proceedings diffeied considerably from those of former years. 

 I am not therefore, able to put before you the usual notes dealing with the work which the various 

 Sections of the British Association consider especially suited for investigation by members of the 

 Corresponding Societies, for this year's Delegate.s' Conference spent nearly all the time of its two 

 msetino-s in discussing the organization of scientific education. 



