8 FIRST FIELD MEETING. 
cause of natural history, and of the Club, at each field-meeting, 
I, for one, cannot see how a more succinct record than Mr. 
Thornhill’s could be either satisfactory in the present year, or 
useful for after-reference and comparison, when to look back to it 
may be both pleasing and instructive. TI, therefore, beg leave 
now to read the minutes taken by the Secretary ; and at the end 
of some of the days, by way of showing that this course is not 
followed out of sheer idleness, I will subjoin some remarks on 
what appears to have been always a neglected branch of local an- 
tiquities—namely, on the older and purer forms, and the original 
meaning, of some of the names of localities visited in that excur- 
sion. 
FIRST FIELD MEETING. 
20th May, 1846. 
A party of sixteen of the members assembled to breakfast at 
Ovingham, at 10 o'clock. 
After breakfast they proceeded up Whittle Dene, some 
having first visited the old church at Ovingham, the tomb of 
Bewick, &c.; others the garden of the Rev. Mr. Bigge, the Rec- 
tor, where they were shewn many of the rarer British plants un- 
der successful cultivation. 
The party spent a very pleasant day in the Dene and neigh- 
bouring fields, the only interruption being a rather heavy thun- 
der-storm, which passed over the Dene in the afternoon. 
The following is a list of the rarer objects of Natural History, 
collected or observed :— 
The nests of the Grasshopper Warbler (Sylvia Locustella), and 
of the Long-tailed Titmouse (Parus caudatus), were found by 
Mr. John Hancock, the former being very seldom met with. The 
Golden Crested Wren (Regulus auricapillus) was also observed. 
Twenty-three species of Shells were collected. 
The Dene and neighbourhood are rather rich in the number of 
the plants growing there; not many of them, however, very rare. 
