OPENING ADDRESS. 9 
to the influences of the northern spring of their new 
home without giving up the ancestral habit of breeding 
six months later in the spring time of Australia. 
The celebrated American naturalist Audubon sent some 
Passenger Pigeons to Lord Derby, and they flourished so 
well at Knowsley that after a few years they had increased 
to such an extent as to be a nuisance, and eventually the 
doors of their aviary were opened and as many as chose 
were allowed to fly away. It is curious that so far as is 
known none of these were afterwards shot and recorded 
as wild birds. 
The first mud-fishes (Protopterus), from the Gambia in 
West Africa, which reached this country were brought by 
Lord Derby’s collector, Mr. Whitfield, in 1843. They 
were placed in the warm tanks in the plant houses, were 
successfully melted out of their balls of hardened mud and 
lived there for some time. Some of these were in all 
probability sent to Professor Owen and formed the basis of 
his well known memoi. 
J am unfortunately prevented by the state of my health 
from adding anything further at present to these some- 
what disjointed records of this notable Lancashire collec- 
tion; but the manuscript journals kept by me of the 
living specimens at Knowsley form a mine of interesting 
material from which I hope on some future occasion to 
quarry a further instalment of ‘“‘ Notes” to lay before the 
Liverpool Biological Society. 
