Eeports of Societies. 



103 



follows : — President, Mr. W. Jagger : vice-presidents, Messrs. W. West 

 and H. T. Soppitt ; secretaries, Messrs. F. R. Starling and H. Andrews. 



Hull Field Naturalists' Society. — Meeting 3rd Dec. — Mr. Moore 

 bird-stuffer, showed a great grey shrike (L. excnhitor) shot in the out- 

 skirts of Hull (Sculcoates churchyard), in the previous week. — N. F. 

 DoBREE, president. 



Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society. — Monthly 

 Meeting, November 28th, in the Free Library, the president (Mr. S. J. 

 Capper) in the chair. — The secretary (Dr. Ellis) read a paper on the 



Coleoptera of the district, part II.," in which he enumerated several 

 additions to the ground beetles of the district (part 1. , read last year), 

 and gave a list, with localities, of fifty-four species of hydradephaga, or 

 water-beetles, occuring in the district, out of a total of 134 species 

 inhabiting Britain. Mr. W. R. Scowcroft, of Pendleton, read a paper 

 entitled "Ten Days in the Isle of Arran," in which he described the 

 difiiculty of collecting insects among the bogs and on the windy mountain 

 sides of that island, illustrating his paper by the insects captured, which 

 included two beautiful varieties of Argynnis Aglaia. During the con- 

 versazione, Mr. W. Johnson exhibited a specimen of Xylina petrificata 

 taken in the district, and Mr. Walker a box of European rhopalocera. — 

 J. W. Ellis, Hon. Sec. 



Manchester Cryptogamic Society. — Meeting November 21st. — Capt. 

 Cunlifie, F.P.M.S., who presided, said he had much pleasure in bringing 

 before the notice of the members some specimens of Weissia mucronata, 

 which he had recently found growing near his own home, at Handforth, 

 Cheshire, and which was the more interesting on this account, as he found 

 that it had not been recorded in the catalogue of mosses (published 1881), 

 by the Botanical Record Club, as occuring within the province of the 

 Mersey. This is somewhat singular, as we found on referring to a list of 

 mosses by Mr. G. E. Hunt, which was published by the Manchester 

 Field Naturalists, in their report for 1864, that upon the undoubted 

 authority of Mr. Wilson, specimens of this species had been found by 

 Mr. Wilson himself at Pasteside, April, 1847, and further, that since our 

 first report, published in the Manchester City News, we have ascertained 

 that it has been found in several other localities within the district afore- 

 mentioned, notably at Hattersley, near Mottram, April, 1868, by Mr. 

 John Whitehead. Mr. Stanley exhibited a good series of microscopic 

 slides, chiefly hepatics, but there was not sufl!icient time to examine them 

 as they deserved. It was, however, evident that Mr. Stanley had 

 mounted them so as to display the essential microscopic characters, to be 

 observed in studying this class of cryptogams, rather than as objects 

 shown for their rarity and beauty of form. Mr. W. H. Pearson read a 

 few notes translated from G. Limpricht's recen fcly published paper on the 

 European Bog Mosses. The notes read had a more immediate reference 

 to Limpricht's strictures upon C. Wornstoflf's new arrangement of specific 



