president's address. 
237 
purpose an adjournment was made to the Foreign Bird-Room), 
confining his attention to the Orders devoted to the Petrels, 
Albatrosses, Grebes, Auks, Flamingoes, Geese, Swans, and Pucks, 
which he illustrated by the specimens in the cases. On this, as on 
a previous occasion, the Members of the Science Gossip Club were 
invited to attend, a compliment which they returned on the 
occasion of Mr. Ilarmer’s lecture “On the Geological Conditions 
of the Pliocene Period in Northern Europe,” delivered before, the 
members at their Club on the 8th of December. 
It is with pleasure we note the good work done by the two local 
Societies for the protection of birds during the close time. With 
only a single watcher on Breydon, Mr. Gurney, in a recent paper in 
the ‘Zoologist,’ shows that the Breydon Wild Birds Protection 
Society has fully justified its existence. It was not to be expected 
that with such inadequate means an entire stop could be put to 
illegal shooting, but many birds which would otherwise have been 
slaughtered have certainly escaped. Mr. Gurney estimates that in 
the last ten springs and summers, not less than eighty-four 
Spoonbills have visited Breydon Water, and adds : “ Surely if our 
gunners would be considerate enough to let this grand bird alone, 
the woods of Cantley and Caister might rejoice in its presence 
again in the breeding time.” That this is not at all improbable, is 
indicated by the way in which flocks of these birds, sometimes 
numbering twelve or thirteen individuals, visit us in spring, 
evidently in search of breeding quarters. Colonel Feilden also 
writes, with regard to the Society for protecting the breeding 
Terns, &c., on the Wells Sand Hills, that during the seven years of 
its existence the Society has not had a single prosecution, and he 
does not believe (with the exception to be mentioned) that a single 
egg has been taken, and they have received the sympathetic 
support of the shore-going people, who as a rule appreciate their 
efforts. “ One year only,” writes Colonel Feilden, “ did I omit 
putting on the watcher, partly because I was out of the country, 
and partly because I was somewhat desirous of seeing the result — 
which was that the idle boys harried and broke all the eggs, and 
hardly a Tern was hatched off. The mere fact of the watcher 
