214 Cl'roc. B.N.F.C, 



and from these sketches her daughter, Miss F. F. Hobson, 

 produced some carefully prepared plans, which were photo- 

 graphed and thrown on the screen. There are a great num- 

 ber of souterrains both in County Antrim and County Down. 

 They are so numerous along the valley of the Sixmilewater 

 and in the neighbourhood of Connor that the country seems 

 honeycombed with them. Their preservation can be 

 accounted for partly by their being underground, but chiefly by 

 the superstitious reverence with which they are regarded, a 

 large number of people believing that any interference with 

 them would lead to some calamity either to their families or 

 cattle. The uniform character of these cave-dwellings or 

 hiding-places was referred to, also some instances where 

 uniformity was departed from and a second story added to 

 the structure. The writer also made reference to some pre- 

 historic burial places at Newgrange, Giant's Ring, &c., in 

 order to point out the similarity of structure between these 

 and the souterrains, and women were invited to pursue this 

 interesting investigation, as they are treated with more hospi- 

 tality than falls to the lot of the mere man. 



The President referred to the careful measurements of 

 these souterrains by Mrs. Hobson, and also to the plans 

 drawn by Miss Hobson, the first Belfast lady architect. Miss 

 Andrews enquired as to the folk-lore connected with these 

 erections, Messrs. Gray and Welch spoke favourably of the 

 paper, and Mrs. Hobson briefly replied. 



The third paper was by Mr. W. H. Workman, M.B.O.U., 

 on " Birds and Nests." It was illustrated by many lantern 

 slides, most being original. In the course of his remarks, 

 Mr. Workman said the macaws are a group of the parrot tribe 

 from South America, and are not good talkers. He had seen 

 in the Zoological Gardens in London a black cockatoo said to 

 be thirty-two years old. Pelicans are to be found in nearly 

 all the tropical regions of the world, and their bones have 

 been discovered in Norfolk and Cambridge, indicating that 

 comparatively recently they were, at least, occasional visitors 

 to England. The great black-backed gull is now rather rare 



