280 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



GLASGOW PRACTICAL 



NATURALISTS' SOCIETY. 



This Society has now entered on its 

 second session, and the members have 

 every reason to be satisfied with the success 

 which has attended their efforts. During 

 the past session eleven well-attended meet- 

 ings were held, at which numerous interest- 

 ing specimens were exhibited and the fol- 

 lowing papers read : — Notes on Arran Lepi- 

 doptera, J. McGrouther ; Collecting round 

 Paisley, Alex. Stewart ; Observations oh 

 Lepidoptera, season 1883, T. J. Henderson ; 

 Notes on the Past Season, F. N. Pierce, 

 Liverpool ; The Feathered Inhabitants of 

 Linlithgow Loch, Alex. Duncan, Linlith- 

 gow ; Collecting at Glasgow on New Year's 

 Day, 1884, J. McKay; Dytucus marginalis, 

 C. B. Cross ; Report on the Birds of Lin- 

 lithgow Loch, Winter, 1883-84, Alex. Dun- 

 can ; Collecting in North Wales, Rathbone 

 Hughes, Liverpool. Considerable progress 

 has also been made in compiling a list 

 of the lepidoptera of the Clydesdale dis- 

 trict. 



The first meeting of the second session 

 was held in the Society's Rooms, 177, 

 Buchanan Street, on September 10th, T. J. 

 Henderson, Esq., president, in the chair, 

 when the following gentlemen were appoint- 

 ed office-bearers for the session : — President, 

 T. J. Henderson; Secretary, J. McGrouther, 

 61, Grant Street, Glasgow ; Treasurer, Geo. 

 G. McKenzie; Librarian, J. McKay. The 

 secretary read a communication from Mr. 

 Alex. Duncan, Linlithgow, giving some 

 notes on the various birds frequenting Lin- 

 lithgow Loch during the spring months; 

 and Mr. T. J. Henderson read some inter- 

 esting " Observations on Lepidoptera, season 

 1884." Mr. John McKay exhibited an ex- 

 ceedingly light series of Thera variata from 

 Arran, and Mr. J. McGrouther laid on the 

 table a very variable series of Ypsipetes 

 elutata. 



THE NEXT VOLUME. 



It has been our custom at the close of a 

 volume to give to our readers some idea of 

 what we propose to do during the ensuing 

 year. This time we have several important 

 changes to announce, which we hope will 

 turn out to be improvements, and enhance 

 the usefulness of the magazine. In the 

 first place the style of printing will be 

 altered, and in lieu of the double column as 

 at present, the lines will run across 

 the page. We will save a little space in the 

 centre by this means, and will in future use 

 a new type a little larger, and very much 

 clearer than that from which we have 

 hitherto printed. 



We have found the usefulness of the 

 various monographs have been much im- 

 paired by being scattered through the pages, 

 perhaps of more than one volume. To 

 remedy this we propose to separate such 

 matter from the other contents, and print it 

 as a supplement, giving 8, 12, or 16 pages of 

 supplement as may be convenient. These 

 supplements will be separately paged, and 

 as completed will have separate title pages, 

 &c, so that they can, if desired, be bound 

 apart from the rest of the volume. We 

 hope thus to give our young readers, in the 

 course of a little time, manuals of various 

 groups, some of which are perhaps not obtain- 

 able in any shape at present, or only in so 

 costly a form as to be practically unobtain- 

 able. That this mode of issuing may not be 

 too tedious, we will make each portion com- 

 plete with each well defined group. Thus the 

 Geodephaga will be completed apart from 

 the Hydradephaga in Coleoptera; the 

 Sphinges apart from the Bombyces in 

 Lepidoptera and so on. Those for which 

 we have already arranged include a series 

 of papers on Botany in which the various 

 families will be considered separate groups. 

 In these botanical papers a new feature will 

 be introduced that we hope will be of 



