BY THE IIKV. CANON XRISXIIAM. '27 



from the neighbourhood of Byer's Quarry, where for so many 

 years past they have grown and rewarded the excursions of our 

 botanical students. The Sea Asplenium, the Moonwort, the 

 Adder's-tongue, and the Orchis ustulata and several other species 

 have shared the same fate, and are now quite lost to this dis- 

 trict. But some interest still lingers about Marsden Bay, in the 

 peculiar forms of the limestone cliffs and the puzzling problems 

 they suggest, problems not easily solved or satisfactorily ex- 

 plained. Our "Vice-President, H. Cooper Abbs, presided, and 

 after a plain tea a paper was read " On the Probable Stalactitic 

 Origin of the Conglobated form of the Magnesian Limestone^'' by 

 one of the Secretaries, and then the members strolled home- 

 wards by the cliffs or travelled by rail from the Marsden station 

 to Shields. 



On 18th April, a joint meeting of the IS'atural History Society 

 of ^Northumberland, Durham, and ^Newcastle, and the Tyneside 

 Naturalists' Field Club, was held in the Committee Eoom of the 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, Newcastle. Dr. Embleton 

 presided. Mr. Howse read a paper by Mr. John Hancock, 

 " On the curious proceedings of a Nuthatch (Sitta csesia) ob- 

 served at Oatlands, 1889." In a note by Mr. Thos. Thompson, 

 " On the occurrence of the Willoiv Wren near JBlaydon, in January., 

 1890," it was stated that on Thursday, the 16th January, a 

 specimen of the common migrant, the "Willow Wren, was ob- 

 served between Blaydon and Scotswood Bridge. It was in good 

 condition and plumage, having no old wounds whatever visible. 

 He had never heard of such an occurrence before in the North 

 of England. The bird was preserved by Mr. "Walker of Blaydon, 

 who kindly sent it to Mr. Thompson for inspection. It was 

 agreed that the singularity of the occurrence was the season of 

 the year at which the bird was seen, this being on account of 

 the mildness of the winter. — Notes by Mr. Thompson were also 

 read upon varieties of the Common Mole and upon tracks left 

 on a footpath by Earth-"Worms in their nocturnal wanderings. — 

 Mr. Howse read the Introduction to a Catalogue of the Fishes of 

 the Rivers and Coast of Northumberland and Durham and the 



