CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 765 
of bye-laws preventing hawking, &c., along highways in every county. The 
Rurat District Councils are asked also to prevent the evil effects of road 
trimming and scraping upon wayside flowers, if only from the esthetic stand- 
point. ‘The secretaries of scientific societies and associations are asked to form 
a local branch by appointing corresponding secretaries to keep the section in 
touch with local needs, and to afford all the help that such a widely organised 
basis for propaganda supplies. This appeal in advance will reach many to whom 
otherwise the section would not have had access. 
The Rev. F. Smith (Prehistoric Society of East Anglia) affirmed that nursery- 
men and people who traffic in rare specimens and varieties are the great extermi- 
nators of plants in many localities. Cases of the kind had come to his notice 
during the past thirty-five years in Scotland. He considered that the British 
Association should make a point of helping in the protection of wild plants. He 
also felt that schoolchildren ought not to be sent about the country to collect 
plants to be used in their schools—a procedure too common with teachers. 
Mr. Wilson L. Fox (Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society) supported the 
observations of the previous speaker. He mentioned that in a book by the Rev. 
C. A. Johns, entitled ‘A Week at the Lizard’ the habitat of several rare plants 
and ferns is mentioned, of which that district is now practically depleted, owing 
to the ravages of local dealers. He had heard of hampers of more or less 
rarities having -been sent off to collectors and others, for which a sum of as much 
as 5l. had been paid for one consignment. As an instance, the Royal Fern 
(Osmunda regalis), once common in many valleys in Cornwall, is now seldom met 
with except in private grounds. In this way the Cornish chough has become 
practically extinct, through the eggs being sold, he had been informed, for 1. 
or more apiece, notwithstanding that it is protected under the Wild Birds Pro- 
tection Act. He feared legislation, though it might be useful to a certain 
extent, was not a sufficient deterrent in cases where rare specimens could com- 
mand a commercial value. An efficient remedy was needed. He suggested that 
perhaps the most effectual one would be to have plant and fern sanctuaries, or 
at least gardens set apart in different localities, where under proper cultivation 
and suitable conditions every rare British species might be preserved in one 
situation or another to prevent its extermination. 
Mr. E. A. Martin (South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies) said that the 
question as to the means to be taken to preserve plants would require careful 
consideration. He was strongly opposed to parliamentary action. Laws were 
not made to manufacture criminals, and to think that children who gathered 
amongst common flowers a few rarer ones should come under the purview of the 
law was abhorrent. At the same time he thought that greater care should be 
taken by those in charge of children to prevent plants from being promiscuously 
uprooted, and where only two or three of a species were found none should be 
plucked. An Act of Parliament would do little good and much harm. What 
was wanted was a better feeling amongst teachers toward Nature, and the great 
remedy is education in that direction. 
Mr. R. M. Wilson (for Essex Field Club) supported the remarks made as to 
the extirpation of plants, and gave as an illustration meeting a man on Ben 
More, in Perthshire, carrying a hamper of rare ferns gathered in the vicinity. 
These ferns he proposed sending to a nurseryman in Glasgow to whom he had 
sent other consignments, and for which he had received payment, and produced a 
postal order for 15s. This man had Moore’s book on British Ferns, and visited 
all the localities specified therein in his search. 
Mrs. White (School Nature-Study Union) said that her Society had a mem- 
bership of fifteen hundred teachers, and that the committee of her Society 
had already considered this subject. They were doing all they could to impress 
upon teachers the necessity of teaching Nature-study with the least possible 
destruction of the common flowers and with the complete preservation of the 
rarer plants. 
At a later point in the discussion on this subject, Mrs. White suggested the 
insertion of an article, putting forward the views of the Conference of Delegates, 
in the Journal of the Union. This was published five times yearly, and was 
edited by Miss von Wyss, of the London Day Training College. It would reach 
about two thousand teachers. The meeting being in agreement with the sugges- 
