xli. 



shot. This he considered a finer sight than anything which museums might 

 contain. Mr. Pike and Mr. Luckham also spoke. 



A COMMITTEE MEETING was held at Bloxworth Rectory on Monday afternoon, 

 December 12th. There were present the President, Treasurer, Secretary, and 

 Dr. Turner. Messrs. J. S. Udal and Eustace Bankes were unable to attend. 

 The matters under consideration were the following : The construction of a 

 suitable schedule for recording the prehistoric monuments of the county ; the 

 advisability of circulating schedules for local investigations on various phenomena ; 

 the programme and date of the winter meeting at Dorchester ; the Table of 

 Contents of Volume ix. of the Transactions of the Society ; the question of the 

 exchange of volumes with those of other Societies. 





The WINTER MEETING was held in the County Museum at Dorchester on 

 Friday, January 27th, at which there was a good attendance. The programme 

 was a long one, and but little time was left for discussion. Several specimens 

 were laid on the table for exhibition, amongst which were a series illustrative of 

 the paper on the " Fossil Reptiles of Dorset," and a fine scapula of a mammoth, 

 " Elephas pnmigenius " from a gravel bed near Stalbridge, presented to the 

 Museum by Lord Stalbridge. Seven new members were elected to the Society, 

 Two invitations were received for the summer meetings, one from Canford. 

 the other from the Weymouth College. The proofs of the schedules for recording 

 ' ' the Prehistoric monuments of Dorset" were laid on the table by the Secretary for 

 criticism before they were finally printed and circulated. Some discussion 

 ensued, after which the papers on the programme for the day were taken in 

 order. 



The first paper, "On Rooks," by H. J. Moule, the Curator of the County 

 Museum, will be found at p. 123 in this volume. The President, in thank- 

 ing Mr. Moule for his paper, said it had never before struck him why the 

 rooks of the Whatcombe rookery congregated towards the larger one at Oak 

 Close, a large timbered road, which was also the rendezvous of the neighbour- 

 ing rookery of Milton Abbas, Dewlish, &c. , and, after half an hour or so, they 

 all, with one accord, joined the great colony at Oakclose, where there were 

 millions. With respect to starlings they, like the rooks, had their meeting 

 place. In his neighbourhood, on the land of Mr. Fookes, the well-known 

 agriculturist, there was a withy bed which was perfectly crowded with starlings 

 every night, and every evening they might be seen coming in in different 

 directions to this converging point. The Rev. 0. P. Cambridge said there was 

 a similar example at Warmwell ; the rooks came there from all parts of the 

 county, and Hope Wood, where they rested, contained probably at one time the 

 only high trees in the neighbourhood. Mr. Galpin said he had noticed the 

 same thing at Hope Wood. 



The President read an extract from a long paper, "The Fossil Reptiles 

 of Dorset," which will be found at p. 1 of the present volume. It was 



