PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 395 



side of the road extensive escarpments of Carboniferous Lime- 

 stone outcrop, and form lines of low cliffs on the side of the 

 valley, with here and there a small landsale colliery or a lime- 

 stone quarry, neither of which produce smoke enough to mar 

 the prospect or the purity of the air. Soon we leave the main 

 road, so steep in part as to require not only cautious driving but 

 a diminution of load, and turn into green lanes, where the forced 

 pedestrians commence to do a little botany and gather the early 

 spring flowers that deck the sunny banks and sheltered nooks. 

 Violets, Primroses, Cowslips, and "Ladies' Smocks, all silver 

 white," abound, and thus passing along rough, narrow, and 

 difficult roads, the party arrive at last at Cheviot, close to the 

 Hallington Eeservoir. Most of the party started off, under the 

 guidance of Mr. Smith, to perambulate this artificial lake, on 

 the margin of which Professor Eeis captured some species of 

 Coleoptera, for the most part under the stones. 



Some few of the party secured the boat and pulled off to the 

 bird-island, situated at the north-east corner of the reservoir. 

 An immense cloud of the Black-headed Gulls was seen hovering 

 over the island, uttering their loud and incessant screams ; and 

 as the boat approached nearer another flight of nesting birds rose 

 up in a dense mass to join their noisy comrades in the air. As 

 the birds had been robbed of their eggs two or three times, visitors 

 were not permitted to land — a very necessary precaution, as 

 there were some in the party whose bird-nesting propensity would 

 not have been checked in any other way. These useful birds to 

 the farmer, in many parts of Northumberland, follow the plough 

 and search the newly turned up ground for grubs and worms 

 even more assiduously than the Eooks, those farmers' friends 

 whose characters have been lately more blackened than their own 

 glossy coats. At Pallinsburn, in North Northumberland, and 

 also in many other counties on the East Coast, the Black-headed 

 Gulls are protected, and are fully appreciated by the intelligent 

 and liberal agriculturists, who are wise enough to know that 

 their own interests are best served by a wise conservatism of the 

 forces of Nature, and that injudicious destruction of our feathered 

 friend will in the long run lead to summary retribution. 



