LINCOLNSHIRE NATURALISTS AT 
GIBRALTAR POINT. 
si wie DAVY, 
Trafalgar House, Kew, Surrey; Assistant in the Royal high _ ew, and 
late Hon. Sec, Alford (Lincs.) Naturalists’ Socie. 
AN excursion of Lincolnshire naturalists to Gibraltar Point, North 
Lincolnshire, was planned and carried out on Saturday, August 15th, 
1891, by the Council of the Alford Naturalists’ Society. Its object 
parison of notes, and an investigation of the fauna and flora of the 
immediate vicinity of Gibraltar Point, at the mouth of the Steeping 
ie 
Although about 300 invitations were distributed amongst mem- 
bers of Natural History Societies and other persons in the county 
professedly interested in Natural History, the Alford Society was 
the only Lincolnshire one represented. The party was led by 
Mr. James Eardley Mason, of Alford, well known as an Hemipterist 
and an all-round naturalist always willing to help young naturalists 
with timely information or advice. It also had the advantage o 
the company of the Rev. William Fowler, M.A., vicar of Liver- 
sedge, Yorks., and a Vice-President of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ 
Union, and of Mr. F. M. Burton, F.L.S., F.G.S., of Gainsborough. 
After a hearty eight o’clock breakfast at the Angel Hotel, Wain- 
fleet, the members set off for Gibraltar Point, walking most of the 
way along the bank of the Steeping River. At noon, lunch was 
partaken of in an old hulk converted into a dwelling, yclept 
“Noah’s Ark,’ near the Coast-guard Station there. The members 
were here shown numerous brightly-dyed specimens of a pretty 
feathery Zoophyte (Sertularia pinnata?), which is found very 
abundantly on this coast. It is collected by the children, and 
dried after being dipped in a mixture of methylated spirit and 
glycerine, which acts as a preservative (the proportion being one-half 
of each, with different colouring matters—purple, yellow, etc.— 
added) ; it is then sold to dealers in natural history objects and to 
visitors. The exhibitors called it ‘ sea-weed,’ and would hardly be 
Convinced that it was anything else, because, as they remarked, 
‘it came out of the sea’! Some time was here devoted to an 
investigation of the fore-shore, mud-flats, and sand-hills of the Point. 
tr. Mason obtained several specimens of Hemiptera, noteworthy 
for the large proportion which were infested by a red bag-like 
Parasite. A few of the commoner sea-shells were obtained, but 
Feb, 1892. 
