REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. 475 



in the course of his occupation, and his gift represents the 

 carefully selected results of many years of collecting. Other 

 donations that must be noted here are those of two well 

 preserved mummy hawks from Egypt, given by the President, 

 and of several very rare local beetles given by Mr. R. S. 

 Bagnall. A very interesting addition to the bird collection is 

 a chiffchaff shot on December 20th at Cullercoats by Mr. H. 

 V. Charlton, and presented by him to the museum. The set 

 of Central African big game heads deposited on loan by Mr. 

 Harold Cookson forms for the present a striking and beautiful 

 group on the wall of the lower west corridor. 



The Hancock Prize for 1905 was awarded to Mr. Richard 

 S. Bagnall for an excellent essay describing his beetle-collecting 

 during " An October Day in Gibside " ; and the examiners also 

 spoke highly of the ornithological essay sent in by Mr. R. 

 Smith, of Sunderland, on "A Ramble around Morpeth." As 

 the late Canon Tristram was at the time too ill to undertake 

 any work, Mr. A. Meek kindly acted instead of him as joint 

 examiner with Canon Norman. By instruction of the Council 

 a sub-committee has revised the rules of the competition. 

 The alterations made are chiefly aimed at confining the com- 

 petition to "those whose education has not been of a definitely 

 scientific character," and who are "not members of the learned 

 professions." Partly owing to the intended revision of the 

 rules, fewer circulars than usual had been sent out ; and the 

 result was seen in the smaller number of competitors, only five 

 having submitted essays this year. Now that the revised 

 circulars are ready the competition will be more thoroughly 

 advertised, and a return to the higher numbers of recent years 

 may be expected. 



At the last Annual Meeting authority was given for the 

 appointment of a number of additional Trustees to replace 

 those lost by death since the last appointment was made in 

 1877. Out of the fifteen Trustees elected in that year only 

 four remained, namely, His Grace the Duke of Northumber- 

 land, Sir Andrew Noble, Mr. E. J. J. Browell, and Mr. 

 Norman Cookson. A Special General Meeting was held on 



