SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. S-i 



Starling nesting in November. — I have been informed from a reliable 

 source that on the 12th November last a Starling's nest was found in the 

 roof of a cottage in Aylesbury, containing hard-set eggs. Upon their being 

 broken, the young birds were found within alive, which would no doubt 

 have beeu hatched in a day or so, but in all probability they would not have 

 survived throughout the cold weather. — F. Hayward Parrott (Walton 

 House, Aylesbury). 



Storm Petrel at Ipswich. — Early in the morning of October 25th 

 a Storm Petrel was picked up alive on the Norwich Road, Ipswich. It 

 was in an exhausted condition, and died a few hours afterwards. It 

 had been drived inland by stress of weather, a sharp and severe snow- 

 storm having occurred the previous night. — E. W. Gunn (89, Prince's 

 Street, Ipswich), 



Grey Phalarope in Lincolnshire.— The Grey Phalarope is sufficiently 

 rare in North Lincolnshire to render its occurrence worth notice. On 

 December 1st one was shot at Tetney from one of the marsh drains by my 

 man, who happened at the time to be carrying my gun. He had previously 

 noticed the bird flying about a neighbouring stack-yard, >but mistook it for 

 a Dunlin until he saw it swimming in the drain. I have only once before 

 met with this species in North Lincolnshire, — viz., in the autumn of 

 1879, — when one was shot by my father on the Tetney sands. — G. H. 

 Caton Haigh (Grainsby Hall, Great Grimsby). 



SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



Linnean Society of London. 



November 17, 1887.— Dr. St. George Mivart, F.R.S., Vice-President, 

 in the chair. 



A paper was read by Mr. Patrick Geddes, entitled " Some Factors of 

 Variation in Plants and Animals." This part of the memoir dealt chiefly 

 with plants and their shortening of the axis in leaf, flower, &c. According 

 to him, the origin of species is to be found in soil and climate, on the one 

 hand, and in a more or less distinct ebbing of the vegetative activities back 

 from the growing point. Modification by descent is seen to take place 

 along a definite line of change within which the action of natural selection 

 can at best somewhat accelerate its journey, when it does not actually retard 

 or exterminate it. 



A communication was read on the Copepoda of Madeira and the Canary 

 Islands, with descriptions of new genera and species, by Mr. Isaac C. 



ZOOLOGIST. JAN. 1888. I> 



