24 
II. 
ON A METHOD OF EEGISTEEING NATUEAL HISTOEY 
OBSEEYATIONS. 
By Alfred Newton, M.A, E.E.S., &c. 
Read 30th August, 1870. 
Anything that helps to facilitate or render less irksome the task 
of recording observations in any branch of Natural History, must 
need deserve the best attention of Naturalists. I accordingly 
trust that the remarks I have now the pleasure of communicating 
to the Society, may he thought worthy the notice of some of its 
members, and I do this the more confidently because I have found 
the method I propose to explain to work well in practice, having 
had experience of it for a period of more than ten years. 
I premise that I am one of those persons who have never 
been able to keep a regular journal — in the common acceptation of 
the term for any length of time ; and, without attempting to 
defend my failing in this respect, I may say that I believe I share 
this defect with very many others. But no one has been more 
fully aware than myself, of the importance of noting down a 
continuous series of observations in regard to that part of the 
animal kingdom to which I have chiefly devoted my attention. 
Accordingly, I endeavoured to discover a method which would at 
once secure this desirable result, and yet be free Eom the objection 
I have mentioned. It ap^ieared to me that my end would be 
attained by using a sheet of paper which should be ruled with 
horizontal lines, so as to occupy each line with the observations of 
one day, and divided into vertical columns, so as to fill each column 
with the observations of one sjiecies — but in order to save time in 
entering such observations, as well as to bring them into a con- 
venient space, it would be necessary to keep the record, as far as 
possible, by means of symbols ; and, while naturally using 
