Eepokts of Societies. 



47 



Wolstenholme, eggs of the noddy tern, Sterna stolida ; roseate tern, ^i*. 

 Dougallii ; whiskered tern, S. leucoparcia ; sooty tern^ S. faliginosa ; and 

 the gull-billed tern, S. anglica. Mr. T J). Smith, some small bones from 

 the ear of a whale. Mr. Postill, a bronze spear head, in remarkable 

 preservation, found near Helmsley Blackmoor. 



Yorkshire Naturalists Union, — The sixth meeting of the year was 

 held in the Halifax district, the hunting grounds being Greetland and 

 Norland Moors and North Dean Wood, and the subsequent rendezvous 

 the Dining Hall and Schools at Copley, attached to Messrs. Akroyds' 

 mills. After the tea and the meetings of Sections, the general meeting 

 was opened in the large schoolroom at 6-15 p.m. The Rev. W. Fowler, 

 M.A., of Liversedge, president, in the chair ; the attendance at the 

 meeting was about 80. Twenty-two societies — a larger number than 

 usual — were represented, the three absent ones being the Honley and 

 Middlestown Naturalists' Societies and the Sheffield Naturalists' Club. 

 The usual votes of thanks to the additional subscribers to the Union having 

 been passed, the Sectional Reports were given. Mr. Talbot, of W akefield, 

 president of the Vertebrate Section, stated that but few birds had been 

 observed, either on Greetland Moor or in the woods above the Calder 

 valley. There were but four summer migrants — the willow warbler, 

 swallow, martin, and sand martin ; eighteen resident birds, including the 

 magpie, jackdaw, rook, ringdove, peewit or lapwing, kestrel, skylark, 

 titlark, blue tit, pied wagtail, blackbird, missel thrush, yellow bunting, 

 common or corn bunting, and song linnet. Mr. Thomas Lister, of 

 Barnsley, the secretary, agreed with Mr. Talbot as to the small number 

 of birds compared with those seen at the Goole excursion, when ten 

 summer migrants, twelve wading and swimming birds, and nearly thirty 

 resident birds were observed. But the locality and the season account 

 for the difference, as in plants — species abounding at Goole peculiar to 

 heath, grove, or tidal rivers, not occurring near Copley. Mr. Lister 

 further stated the sea and marsh birds, he had observed at Goole he had 

 seen more abundantly in the noble estuaries of the Dart and Tamar, and 

 on the sea-cliffs of Devon and Cornwall, from Torquay to the Lands' End, 

 when he had fulfilled the trust the Union had honored him with, as 

 delegate to the meeting of the British Association at Plymouth. He had 

 there supported the action of the short time committee in protecting birds 

 during the breeding season. Mr. Caius Cassius Hanson, of Stainland, 

 gave an account of birds noted in the Halifax district as follows : — Aug. 

 16th, the swift last seen ; Aug. 25th, a dunlin shot on the Calder ; the 

 barn'owl and short-eared owl shot on the moors, and in July and August 

 occurred kingfishers, goatsuckers, and corncrakes, the latter numerous, — 

 while in other districts they were stated by members to be scarce. Mr. 

 John Conacher, of Huddersfield, the only conchologist present, stated 

 that on account of the absence of col' ectors not a single shell had been 

 found. For the Entomological Section, Mr. G, T. Porritt, F.L.S., secre- 



