Proceedings. 19 



way, we then decided to watch the birds very carefully, and 

 see if any of them would betray their nests. I retired behind a 

 heap of shingle, and my brother-in-law lay down behind a large 

 log that was lying on the beach in another direction, I soon 

 saw two birds settle, and when they rose I walked to the 

 place and almost immediately saw — lying on the shingle in a 

 slight depression or irregularity of the surface, without the 

 vestige of a nest — two eggs and a young bird. The latter 

 was evidently only just hatched, and the eggs were on the 

 point of hatching, as both were chipped and the young birds 

 were chirping audibly inside. Presently after I found at a 

 very little distance the two eggs of the other bird I had 

 watched, just in the place I expected, also laid on the shingle 

 without any nest. Meanwhile my brother-in-law had marked 

 another bird settle some twenty or thirty yards off, and very 

 soon found three eggs; and I aftei-wards found two young 

 ones recently hatched near the same place. Our mistake had 

 been in searching on the grassy portions of the shingle, for 

 all the four nests we found were on the part where it was 

 absolutely bare of any vegetation. We had also expected to 

 find some little material employed, but in none of those we 

 found was any material whatever used, and there was in no 

 case any artificially formed depression for the eggs to lie in. 

 During the whole time of our search the bhds were flying 

 about overhead, and we had excellent oj)portunities of 

 observing their quick graceful flight, almost Swallow-like in 

 its manner, the bkds themselves also being not much larger 

 than Swifts. We noticed that, besides their ordinary cry, 

 they sometimes uttered a sort of cackling note, shorter than 

 the other, and repeated several times. 



Evening Meeting. — November 11th, 1881. 



The President read an address introductory to the whiter 

 series of meetings, on the subject of the study of Natm-al 

 History, of which the following is his summary : — 



Summing up the remarks made as to the mode of acquiring 



