4 
Mr. Kitton has brought before us in his paper “ On Growth 
and Eeproduction in the Lower Forms of Vegetable Life,” a 
class of objects for the study of which this region offers peculiar 
advantages, and of which few men in Europe are more fitted to speak 
than himself ; while Mr. Barrett has contributed a paper I do not 
hesitate to call one of unusual importance “ On Coast Insects found 
Inland.” To this paper I shall again refer before I close, as it 
seems to me to open views of great interest touching the question 
of the perpetuation of species ; when we think of such extremely 
frail genera of insects retaining their forms, or even existence, 
through enormous periods of time, and under circumstances 
singularly changed. Mr. Stevenson’s remarks that same evening 
on the breeding of certain coast birds on the same spots, cor- 
roborated, as they were, by the examples quoted by Mr. Bayfield 
of the existence of seals in the Caspian Sea and Lake Baikal, in 
conjunction with the paper, form a good example of those un- 
expected coincidences which must occur in our studies when 
accurate observations are made, by which one branch throws 
light upon another while itself receiving illustration ; for I do not 
suppose that the rationale of the existence of the insects or 
birds at Brandon would have been so fully made out, had not the 
little fluttering objects of Mr. Barrett’s care been brought to 
notice. 
Mr. Stevenson’s paper on the abundant occurrence last year 
of the Little Gull on the Eastern Coast, with the fight he has 
thrown upon its fine of migration, is just one of that class of 
records combined with scientific discussion of facts, for which this 
and all Naturalists’ Clubs are formed. 
It will be remembered that a Sub -committee was formed for 
the purpose of compiling a Fauna and Flora of the comity. The 
first part is published in this year’s Transactions — the Mammalia, 
by Mr. Southwell, from whose pen we gladly print a former 
paper “ On the Ornithological Archaeology of Norfolk.” I wish 
he would have allowed his letter to us from Diss, during his 
temporary absence, also to have appeared, if only as a specimen 
of how quiet and simple observation of natural phenomena. 
