REPORT OF FIELD MEETINGS. 455 



EEPORT OF THE FIELD MEETINGS OF THE NATURAL 

 HISTORY SOCIETY FOR 1905. 



Read April 5TH, 1906, by W. E. Beck, Esq., Chairman 

 OF THE Field Meetings Committee for 1905. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — In accepting the post 

 of President of the field section of the Natural History- 

 Society, which honour you so kindly conferred upon me, I 

 did so with feelings of the greatest diffidence, as I felt at the 

 time that there were members much better qualified to under- 

 take the duties pertaining to the office. It is, however, very 

 gratifying to have been placed in a position which enabled 

 me to be of some little assistance in furthering the aims of 

 this Society. 



I will now give you, with one or two short digressions, an 

 account of our various Field Meetings : — 



The First Field Meeting was held at Prestwick Carr on 

 the 1 8th of May. The Carr is a tract of low lying land seven 

 miles north-west of Newcastle, bounded on the north and 

 south by the gently rising lands of Berwick Hill and Prest- 

 wick. To the east lies the village of Dinnington, and along 

 the west end it is bounded by the river Pont, into which it is 

 drained. 



Before giving an account of the day's proceedings, I will 

 endeavour to give you a short history of this district which 

 may be of some interest to you. 



The Carr, which is now cultivated fields and woods, was 

 described in 1840 as a marshy waste containing about 1,100 

 acres. In winter and wet seasons it was inundated and 

 covered with water to the extent of over one half of the whole 

 surface. At all seasons there were pools interspersed on the 

 plain, the principal of which was named the Black Pool, about 

 eighty acres in extent. In this and the other pools were 

 found pike, perch, roach, and eel. 



