CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 51 



Mr. Gushing said that the British Association had reported on this 

 •subject at the Cambridge Meeting in 1845, and it was then abandoned 

 until the Royal Meteorological Society took it up. As Mr. Symons 

 had said, the list in 1874 comprised seventy-one plants, eight insects, 

 •and seventeen birds. In 1883 the Society published a new schedule, 

 which included seventy-nine plants, eleven insects, and twenty-one 

 birds. After some years the list was reduced to thirteen plants, five 

 insects, and five birds, and he asked why this reduction had been 

 sanctioned. 



Professor Lebour raised the question why, among the plants, two 

 species had been included which were among the most variable of British 

 species ? 



The Rev. E. P. Knubley, with reference to the list of birds, said that 

 the swallow had been included, but a large number of persons did not 

 know the difference between a swallow, a swift, and a martin. It 

 ■occurred to him that it would be better to insert the sand-m;irtin in its 

 place, because it was likely to arrive the first of the three. The nightin- 

 gale, also included in the list, for all practical purposes ceased in the 

 south of Yorkshire. The only places it had appeared so far north were 

 in the neighbourhood of Doncaster, Leeds, and Harrogate. It had oc- 

 curred at Scarborough once, and it might perhaps be heard near Harro- 

 gate every three or four years. He suggested whether for this bird it 

 would not be better to substitute the chifF-chaflr, the willow wren, or the 

 redstart, which arrive about the same time and are of the same class. 

 This remark applied also to the West of England, where the nightingale 

 is unknown, and he thought that it would be better to have a bird which 

 extended all over the country. 



Mr. Symons said that the nightingale was not included in the first 

 schedule, but there was a strong feeling that the list of British birds 

 would be incomplete without it, and it was therefore eventually inserted. 

 He saw no reason why it should not stand, because he understood that 

 the list represented only the minimum, and not the maximum, of species 

 which might be recorded. 



After some remarks by Sir Rawson Rawson and Mr. Corse Glen, 



Professor Hillhouse called attention to the list of plants. He said 

 there was a manifest objection to the free use of hedge plants, because 

 the body of the hedge was often so protective that there might be two 

 observers in close proximity watching the same species and yet quite 

 diiferent dates might be entered, because of the prevailing direction of 

 the wind at the season. In the next place, with regard to Cratoegus 

 oxyacantha, they would not unfrequently find those plants which grew 

 near or in the hedge flowering ten days before the normal period. He 

 knew of two plants which were two forms of this species which grew 

 side by side with interlacing branches, the periods of flowering differing 

 by from seven to fourteen days. These were growing at the back of 

 Trinity College, Cambridge. With respect to Bosa canina, he was not 

 sure which of the eighteen to fifty forms could be identified with this 

 name, but their flowering period extended over something like seven 

 weeks. The records for this plant would, therefore, be very conflicting. 

 Professor Hillhouse further suggested the advisability of omitting from 

 the schedule the words : ' If, unfortunately, the first flowering be missed 

 for a day or two, the observer is requested to give the estimated date of 

 first flowering and to place an asterisk against the entry.' He was of 



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