PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 5 



Association in his Address, but the actual quantities of fishes 

 or lower animals in the sea are almost too gigantic for the 

 mind to grasp. Recently numbers of dead sea-birds have been 

 picked, up on the Yorkshire coast with their plumage saturated 

 with oil, and this is also believed to have injured the fish, but 

 the origin of the oil, probably from ships, seems uncertain and 

 the occurrence may not be of permanent importance. Some 

 observations of flying fish would tend to shew that their flight 

 is real like that of a bird and not merely a leap or glide. They 

 are said to be able to turn at less than a right angle, to move 

 their fins very fast when in flight, and to fly to such distances 

 and heights as would not be possible on the strength of the 

 original impulse when leaving the water. Unfortunately I 

 have also read an account of some recent observations of the 

 same nature, in which the observer flatly contradicts the above 

 and states that flying fish do not move their fins like wings, and 

 depend entirely for their flight on the impetus gained by the 

 movement of the tail on leaving the water, and in the tops of 

 any waves they may happen to touch, if their flight is low. 

 Both observers seem to have made many observations and 

 sound reliable, but which is right I cannot undertake to say, 

 but positive evidence is generally better than negative and I 

 personally incline to the flapping theory. Of course, like birds, 

 they may sometimes glide through the air without moving their 

 wing- like fins. A wonderful observation of the laying of the 

 eggs of a cuckoo is recorded, in which it is stated that the 

 observer watched the cuckoo deposit 21 eggs in different nests 

 during a period of six weeks, one being laid on alternate after- 

 noons. It never laid in a nest which had not already one egg, 

 and always abstracted one of the eggs of the rightful owner. 

 All the eggs except one were laid in the nests 'of meadow 

 pipits. How the observer knew it to be the same female on 

 different days I do not know, but I have not seen the full 

 account. The nesting of a pair of bee-eaters is recorded from 

 Musselburgh last June, but unfortunately the parents did not 

 live to hatch their brood, one being captured and the other 

 killed by a cat. Cats lead us naturally to rats, on which an 



