YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS’ UNION: . 
VERTEBRATE SECTION. 
YORKSHIRE Naturalists’ Union Vertebrate Section meetings 
were held in the Leeds Institute on November 21Ist, 1914. . Mr. 
H. B. Booth, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U., was in the chair. 
The Meeting heard with great regret that Mr. Johnson 
Wilkinson, the newly-elected Secretary of the Protection Acts 
Committee, had just suffered a painful bereavement by the death 
of his wife, and the Hon. Secretary was requested to convey 
to him an expression of sympathy and condolence. 
The Annual Reports of the North, East and West Ridings 
were read by Mr. H. B. Booth, Mr. E. W. Wade and Mr. Riley 
Fortune respectively ; for details see the Union’s Annual Report 
in The Naturalist. Commenting on Mr. S. H. Smith’s report on 
the increase of the Red-legged Partridge, Mr. W. H. St. Quintin 
stated that Mr. Wrigley, of Gantree, had shot 29 in one day, 
quite an unprecedented number for any Yorkshire area. The 
Corncrake in the Rillington district was decidedly on the 
down grade, only one brood being noted this year, against three 
in 1913. He was strongly of the opinion that this species 
suffered badly from telephone and telegraph wires. He had 
seen the Waxwing in South France in March, three were shot 
near Hyéres, one in December 1913, and two in January Ig9f4. 
He regretted to say the Bearded Tit experiment at Hornsea had 
apparently failed. 
Mr. G. H. Porritt in contradiction to Mr. Wade’s report, 
considered Ig14 a very bad insect year, so far as those species 
which constitute bird food are concerned. 
Mr. S. H. Smith had noted while Partridge shooting that 
the Red-legs don’t face the guns as readily as Perdix cinerea, 
and this fact may account to some extent for the great increase 
of the former species. 
Mr. Fortune presented the General and Financial Reports 
of the Yorkshire Wild Birds and Eggs Protection Acts Com- 
mittee, and the Yorkshire Mammals, Amphibians Reptiles and 
Fishes Committee for 1914. 
The election of officers for 1915 was proceeded with. The 
question of Recorder for the York District was discussed, and 
Mr. S. H. Smith was appointed to that office. 
On behalf of Mr. G. H. Parkin, Mr. Pollard exhibited 
stuffed specimens of the Common Shrew and the Water Shrew 
(dark variety), also Daubenton’s Bat caught at mid-day on 
the margin of the reservoir at Coldhiendley. Mr. Booth showed 
a skin of the Jersey Vole sent by the late W. Cash, and detailed 
its specific differencies. 
Mr. F. H. Edmondson handed round skins of male, female 
and immature male Merlins. 
Naturalist, 
