202 Anniversary Address. 



for each, that we almost felt he must be amongst us, 

 though invisible. T hope that next year he may take 

 his place amongst us in renewed good health. 



We have been favoured at nearl}^ all our Meetings by 

 beautiful weather, in fact it has been a summer in 

 which one has given up thinking that any excursion 

 could be spoilt by rain. But this extraordinarily long 

 continuance of dry weather has been a cause of great 

 anxiety to farmers, and, on light soils, of much loss from 

 want of pasturage, short hay crops, turnips only half 

 their proper size, a very small yield of grain, and very 

 short straw. Fortunately, however, in the north of 

 England and in Scotland we had unusually fine weather 

 for harvest, and did not suffer as much as it was feared 

 we should, nor as much as in the south of England. 



The very hot spring seems to have tempted some Birds 

 to migrate further north than usual.. The Nightingale, 

 which is supposed never to come north of the Trent, 

 was heard for three weeks in May and June singing 

 every night in Whittingham Wood, Northumberland. 

 There were probably a pair of them. I went myself, 

 on 5th June, and heard the cock bird singing at 10 

 p.m., high up in an Oak tree, at the edge of the wood ; 

 there was only a running stream between the wood and 

 the footpath on which I and twenty other people were 

 standing listening to him. I have heard hundreds of 

 Nightingales when quartered at Newport, Isle of Wight, 

 and Chichester, and also in Hertfordshire, and cannot be 

 mistaken in the song. I do not think that any one 

 ever saw the bird. I am happy to say that Lord 

 Ravens worth, to whom Whittingham Wood belongs, as 

 soon as he was told that a Nightingale had been heard, 

 gave orders to his gamekeepers that no one was to be 

 allowed to disturb it. We must hope that there were 

 a pair of them, and that they reared their young, and 

 that if we have another fine spring some of them may 

 iSnd their way back to their birthplace. 



