PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 189 



at the ground, when a little chick, one of the objects of their 

 solicitude, was seen squatted within an inch of my shoe. I 

 picked him up. He was just emerging from the downy state 

 into incipient plumage, and his little crest was already distinctly 

 budding. He had been found within a foot of the water, but I 

 set him down about a yard off it, lest he should fall in. To my 

 amazement, no sooner was he free than he ran straight to the 

 water and at once launched himself on its gently rippling sur- 

 face. Away he went, in no great hurry, but steadily and 

 speedily, at the same time looking round ever and anon, as if 

 to say, "Come and catch me again." And instead of making 

 for shore in distress, he stood right out to sea, till he fairly 

 crossed the pond at its broadest part, which must have been a 

 width of thirty or forty yards; and this without the slightest 

 faltering or sign of fatigue. It was one of the most instructive 

 lessons in ornithology I ever received. 



In the dredging operations of the Tyne, in the neighbourhood 

 of the King's Meadows, some noble trunks of oak trees have been 

 brought out of the bed of the river and towed to the northern 

 shore, where they now lie. I have not yet been fortunate 

 enough to visit the spot at perfectly low tide, when the finest 

 of them may be examined and measured ; but from all that has 

 been said of it, the tree must have been not only of .stately 

 growth and great dimensions, but freely developed in the shelter 

 of a forest, where it was protected from the winds. * 



Let me urge some of our members to look well to these trees, 

 and any others that the dredging-vessels may bring to light, for 

 I feel no little self-reproach and regret, to have known of them 

 as early as last spring, and yet to have only so lame a story as 

 the present to tell concerning them. 



Finally, with renewed thanks to the " Tyneside Naturalists' 

 Field Club," for having called me to fill the office of President 

 once more, and at the age of threescore years and ten, I must 

 close this somewhat too long address. 



* A lesser tree (which was ahove water at the time when I reached the place where 

 they had been deposited) was quite of this free-grown, close-forest type. It was an oak, 

 apparently sound, and has been prostrated whilst yet in its full vigour, probably by an 

 encroachment of the river-current upon the forest. 



