The Report. 138 
“Jn regard to finance, it will be well to explain that though the 
_ balance-sheet (which will shortly be in the hands of the Members) 
_ of £195 13s. 5d., that apparent balance is of a somewhat fictitious 
_ eharacter, as a large portion of it will shortly be absorbed in de- 
_ The state of our funds may be generally said to be in the same 
healthy, but not too flourishing, condition as last year. 
As regards publications, the Society has this year made a 
divergence from its customary issue of two Wagazines in the 
direction of publishing a large octavo volume of five hundred and 
_ twelve pages, on the ‘ Flowering Plants of Wiltshire,’ for which it 
has been so fortunate as to secure the valuable services of one who 
_has the botany of our county at his finger ends, in the person of 
“the Rev. T. A. Preston, of Marlborough. That volume the Society 
hopes to present to its Members within the course of a very few 
days, and as a number of the Magazine was issued shortly after the 
Annual Meeting at Salisbury, and another is now in a forward 
state of preparation, it will be seen that as regards publication the 
“Museum and Library have received additions by donations of various 
sorts and from various quarters, all of which have been duly ac- 
wledged, but they are none of them of a nature to call for any 
special mention here. 
- “We come now to the work of the Society afield, and here we 
have some very important matters to communicate, for in the 
extreme south of the county excavations on a large scale have been 
nade this spring by General Pitt-Rivers, and sections of considerable 
r aensions have been cut, under the immediate direction of that 
experienced archeologist, in one of the old boundary ditches, known 
1s Bokerley Dyke. It had long been generally believed by the 
great majority of Wiltshire antiquaries that Bokerley Dyke, together 
vith its fellow Grimsdyke (to the south of Salisbury), Old Dyke 
vh ich runs over Salisbury Plain to the north of Heytesbury), and 
ur own Wans Dyke (in this immediate neighbourhood), were, what- 
vel might have been their object, and whoever their authors, at 
} K 2 
