NOTES AND NEWS. 



Among recent elections to the Fellowship of the Geological Society of London, 

 we note the names of Messrs. W. Elliott Howe (Matlock Bath), Lees Knowles, 

 M.A. (Pendlebury, near Manchester), James Backhouse (York), and James 

 Shipman (Nottingham). >oo< 



The forthcoming issue of an important new work on the Rotifera or Wheel 

 Animalcules, from the pens of Messrs. C. T. Hudson and P. H. Gosse, is 

 announced by Longmans and Co. In the thirty plates of coloured figures all the 

 known British species and the more important foreign ones are to be figured. 



>03< ■ • 



The Field has lately given a list (with statistics) of Otter-hound packs in the 

 British Isles — eleven in number. Of these four are in the North of England — viz., 

 the Carlisle Otter-hounds, 15 couple; the West Cumberland, about 14 couple, with 

 headquarters at Cockermouth ; the Egremont, 10^ couple, with headquarters at 

 Egremont, via Carnforth; and the Kendal, 12 couple, with headquarters at Fellside, 

 near Kendal. >co< 



Yorkshire naturalists will learn with gratification that one of themselves — 

 Mr. W. Percy Sladen, F.L. S., F.G.S., formerly of Halifax, so well known as a 

 student of the echinoderms — was elected to the zoological secretaryship of the 

 Linnean Society, in succession to Mr. G. J. Romanes, at the anniversary meeting 

 held on the iith of June. At the same time Lord Walsingham was elected a 

 member of the council of the society. 



>co< 



A meeting was held at Macclesfield on the 6th of June for the purpose of 

 reorganising the Macclesfield Scientific Students' Association, which was founded 

 in 1880, to promote scientific study and research. The word 'Students" was 

 erased from the name of the association, and a revised code of rules was adopted. 

 The subscription is limited to five shillings a year, and ladies are admitted on 

 equal terms with gentlemen. Sections for the study of particular branches of 

 science may be formed, and excursions are to be a distinctive feature of the 

 society. Mr. John Potts, F.G.S., was elected president ; Mr. John Dale, 

 F.R.Met.S., honorary secretary ; and Messrs. S. Adshead, H. Birchenough, M.A., 

 J. O. Nicholson, and A. S. Woodward, vice-presidents. 



>ocX 



The Liverpool Naturalists' Field Club has now completed a quarter of a 

 century of its existence, a period of time during which it has, as a unit, travelled 

 about 6,500 miles in pursuit of natural history objects, although, as the committee 

 point out with regret, its operations have been practically confined to botanical 

 investigation. The Report details the proceedings of 1884, and includes the 

 presidential address, to which he (Rev. H. H. Higgins, M.A.) gives the title 

 ' OpvidokoyLa, Bird Life under the Shrubs, and what may be seen from my study 

 chair.' The Botanical Resmne, by Messrs. Robert Brown and John Vicars, 

 sustains its value and interest. We are pleased to see that one of the sessional 

 prizes has been awarded to Dr, J. W. Ellis, for a collection of coleoptera. The 

 list of officers remains practically as in previous years. 



>oX 



We think it worth while to record the result of an experiment which was made 

 this year in the little village of Staveley, near Boroughbridge. At the annual 

 Children's Flower Service, which was held this year on the 6th of August, the 

 Rector (Rev. E. Ponsonby Knubley), in addition to giving prizes for the best 

 arranged Bouquets of garden and wild flowers, and in order to encourage a taste 

 for Botany, offered a prize to the scholar who sent in the greatest number of named 

 Wild Flowers. For this last prize there were four competitors. The winner sent 

 in thirty-four different kinds of flowers, of which twenty-seven were rightly 

 named. The others showed respectively twenty-three, twenty-three, and nineteen 

 different flowering plants. Only three kinds were sent in by all the competitors, 

 namely, Bramble, Black Knapweed, and Harebell. In the four collections there 

 were altogether fifty-five different species. When our readers consider that these 

 results were obtained from scholars in a village school, where Botany is not taught, 

 and that this is the first attempt of the kind, they must, we think, consider the 

 result highly satisfactory. , , , 



Sept. 1885. , * 



