Northern Neim. 4 1 1 



The Thirty-second Annual Report of" the Chester Society of Natural 

 Science, etc. (for 1902-3), is to hand. Nineteen of its 38 pajjes are occupied 

 bv a list of its 971 members and their addresses. Two items, however, are 

 of interest. One (occupyingf half a pagfe) is entitled ' A few Bird Notes 

 for the Year,' by Mr. .S. G. Cumming-s ; the other is the Meteorolog-ical 

 Report for iqo2, by the Rev. J. C. Mitchell. 



A Naturalist's Calendar kept at Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgfeshire, 

 by Leonard Bloniefield, edited by Francis Darwin (20 + 84 pp., cloth), has 

 just been issued by tlie Cambridg-e University Press. The calendar is 

 founded on observations made between 1820 and 1831, and from these dates 

 he calculated the mean date and recorded the earliest and latest occurrence 

 of each phenomenon (plant, insect, bird, etc.). The book will be most useful 

 for comparison with similar records made nowadays. 



NORTHERN NEWS. 



On 2 1 St September four tourists were killed in trying- to climb a difficult 

 part of Scawfell. 



The Rev. W. W. Mason has presented his collection of 200 species of 

 British Mosses to the Bootle Museum. 



Mr. F. Cavers, B.Sc, of the Yorkshire College, Leeds, has accepted an 

 appointment at the Technical School, Plymouth. 



' The Halifax Naturalist ' for August contains an introduction to the 

 Fungus-Flora of Halifax, by Mr. C. Crossland, F. L.S. 



Mrs. E. J. CoUing-wood Wilson, of Scarborough, has bequeathed ^200 

 to the Mayor and burgesses of Scarborough for the Museum. 



Mr. S. L. Mosley has recently made a tour round several museums, and 

 gives a brief account of them in ' Nature Study' for September. The Museum 

 ■at Derby ' is very poor, and a disgrace to the town.' 



The same journal contains a record of Sabine's Gull on the Yorkshire 

 coast, on the authority of Mr. C. Jeffreys. 



Indications of contamination in Cleethorpes oysters having been dis- 

 covered, the beds have been closed until steps can be taken to remove the 

 cause of infection. The Grimsby sewage outfall is only two miles away. 



In a report of an account oi a recent excursion of the Barrov^' Naturalists' 

 Field Club to Millom, Mr. Harper Gaythorpe gives a description of an ex- 

 tensive poaching affray in Broughton Park, Lancashire, so long ago as 1552. 



In connection with the Cumberland Educational Committee a Summer 

 Holiday Course of Lectures in Nature Study, for teachers, has recently 

 been given, under the direction of Mr. T. Postgate. This was largely 

 botanical, and was supplemented by field rambles. The course proved 

 highh' successful, and will no doubt be repeated. 



During the last two years Mr. W. Mark Pybus, the president of the 

 Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon- 

 Tyne, has given a review of the society's field work as his presidential 

 address. This example might well be followed by other presidents, par- 

 ticularly as the subject necessitates their attendance at the field meetings. 



About 1,000 acres of land in the valley of the Trent, near East Ferry, 

 about nine miles from Gainsborough, is to be 'reclaimed.' Arrangements 

 are being made for the area to be ' warped ' and transformed from ' waste ' 

 to useful agricultural land. The district has long been known as a favourite 

 haunt of wild fowl, and all naturalists will regret the loss of still another 

 slice of ' natural ' England. 



1903 October i. 



