212 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1917. 
to the species which should be protected, the ornithologists in a natural history 
society can render County Councils valuable help. An order for the protection 
of certain birds was issued by the Hertfordshire County Counci] in 1895 on 
the representation of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society, the schedule 
being drawn up by ornithological members of the Society and accepted by the 
County Council. 
The next Section is Geography, but it will be better to take here Section K, 
Borany, especially as most of the remarks on zoology apply also to botany. 
Such is the duty of compiling a flora, as well as a fauna, of each Society’s area; 
of recording the habitats of plants, with special reference to the study of 
ecology or plant-associations ; of studying their life-histories, and protecting the 
rarer species from extermination. As with animals, so with plants, it is the 
distribution of the microscopic forms, such as the desmids and diatoms, about 
which we know least, and although they cannot lay claim to such beauty of form 
and coloration as the freshwater rhizopods and heliozoans, they will well repay 
far more attention than they have hitherto received. The study of fungi has 
several times been brought before our Conference, and I will only add that we 
know least and ought to know most about our leaf-fungi as being of great 
economic importance. More frequently still have we discussed the question of 
the preservation of our native plants. 
The action of some societies in providing reservations for plants and animals, 
as the Selborne Society has done in its Brent Valley Bird Sanctuary, or in 
urging other bodies to acquire sites for such purposes, is much to be commended. 
So also is that of endeavouring to retain wild spots in their primitive state. 
The Hertfordshire Natural History Society has done something towards this 
end. In 1892 an attempt was made to carry out a scheme for the ‘ regulation’ 
of Bricket Wood Common, between Watford and St. Albans, by the sale of 
certain outlying parts of the common and the building of houses thereon in 
order to provide funds for making gravel-paths over it, draining it, and 
providing a park-keeper to look after it. The Society devoted part of two of 
its meetings to a discussion of the scheme, the Lord of the Mano® and some 
of the copyholders being present at the second meeting, when the opposition 
to curtailing the common by selling outlying portions as building-land was so 
strong that a resolution protesting against it was carried by a large majority, 
and the scheme was dropped, a vigilance committee being appointed to report 
any attempt to revive it, for if such an attempt were carried out we should 
lose the greater part of the interesting flora and fauna of the common and its 
scrubs and woodland. More recently, when part of Cassiobury Park was sold 
for building and it was proposed that, Watford should purchase from the buyers 
a portion of the part acquired, they building houses round it and leaving the 
enclosed space as a public park, our Society, in conjunction with its offshoot, 
the Watford Field-Path Association, called a public meeting which made a 
recommendation that no houses should be built between the proposed public 
park and the remaining private park, which, being acceded to, was so grate- 
fully and courteously accepted by the original owner, the Earl of Essex, that he 
consented to his park being divided only from the public park by an open 
iron fence. Thus the public secured a sight of the whole of the old park, which 
Lord Essex secured from being overlooked by houses. These instances are 
given as examples of the good which can be done by scientific societies in 
their corporate capacity, outside the scope of their usual activities, and which 
could not be done by any of their members individually. 
Taking now Section E. Grocraruy, it is not a science which can be much 
advanced by the concerted action of our societies, except by urging its efficient 
teaching in schools. With the branch of it called Topography we have more 
concern. It should be our first aim to define the area of our operations 
precisely and in accord with neighbouring societies, so that there may be no 
overlapping in our investigations, and to work that area thoroughly. For this 
purpose our 6-in. to the mile Ordnance Map is essential. The methods of our 
Ordnance Survey have been severely criticised at our Conferences, especially 
with regard to the inch-to-the-mile maps, now much improved but too dear for 
a ready sale. 
Section F, Economic Science anp Statistics, might well have occupied the 
See) x 
