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YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS' UNION: 



26th ANNUAL REPORT. 



In presenting the twenty-sixth annual report the Executive Council 

 have to state that the Union still remains in a flourishing and pros- 

 perous condition, with the result that both at its excursions and by 

 the individual researches of its members and associates much good 

 work is being done towards the investigation of the fauna and flora 

 and physical features of the county. It is peculiarly the task of the 

 county Society to undertake work of a character which is beyond 

 the scope of the local Societies which in Yorkshire are so numerous 

 and so active, and that the Union is fully alive to the responsibilities 

 which are thus entailed upon it, is fully evidenced by the publication 

 recently of the handsome and singularly complete volume upon the 

 Flora of West Yorkshire from the pen of Mr. F. Arnold Lees, by the 

 commencement of the issue of a new and revised edition of Mr. J. 

 Gilbert Baker's classical and very scarce work on North Yorkshire, 

 and by the success which has attended the operations of the 

 Yorkshire Boulder Committee and of the sister committee for 

 investigating the Marine Zoology of the Yorkshire Coast. 



The Meeting's held during the year have been five in number, 

 the places and dates being as follows : — Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Whit- 

 Monday, 30th May ; Gormire Lake and Thirkleby Park, Wednesday, 

 20th July ; Sedbergh and Howgill Fells, Monday, ist August ; Welton 

 Vale, Saturday, 27th August; Hatfield Chace, Wednesday, 2TSt 

 September. For each of these excursions the usual fully-descriptive 

 circular which conduces so much to the success of the day's investi- 

 gations was issued, and at all the meetings some good results were 

 achieved. [The detailed description of each meeting is here omitted, 

 full particulars having from time to time appeared in this journal]. 



On all these occasions the Union has been indebted as of old to 

 the great kindness of the landowners for facilitating research on their 

 estates, and to the Yorkshire Railway Companies for the privileges 

 granted to the members attending the various excursions and 

 meetings. 



The Societies which constitute the Union now number 37, 

 being an increase upon the number reported twelve months ago. 

 Two societies — the Beverley and Honley Naturalists' Societies — 

 having ceased to exist, are no longer borne on the roll. On the 

 other hand the addition of the Ackworth School Natural History 

 Society, Brighouse Friends' Botanical Society, Craven Naturalists' 

 Association, Leyburn Literary and Scientific Society, Leeds Y.M.C.A. 

 Naturali sts' Club, Scarborough Philosophical Society, and Thirsk 



April 1888. 



