REPORT. 
157 
A meeting was hekl at the Hatfield Hyde Scliool in February, when 
it was decided to form a Hranch. At another meeting, on March to, 
the Hranch was duly formed, officers selected and rules drawn up. 
There are now thirty-eight subscribing members and four non-sub- 
scribing. Seven of the committee (which numbers ten) are children. 
When possible, a walk is taken on .Saturday afternoons into the 
surrounding country ; of late this has been almost weekly. Short walks, 
of about an hour's duration, are often taken at 6 p.m. on other days of 
the week. 
Natural History Notes are taken daily, a lecture delivered weekly by 
the Secretary, and a list of animals appearing, &c., posted in the 
school monthly. 
It is proposed to establish a Museum, when funds permit, for pur- 
poses of education, &c., not for mere collection, and, therefore, with due 
regard to the preservation of anything that is rare. 
The special work of the year is to be e.KCursions by the younger 
members to the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, so far as 
funds permit. One such has already been taken and proved most 
beneficial. 
It is found that, so long as the manager pays due attention to the 
branch, the children take a keen and intelligent interest in the work, and 
it has been observed that the benefit to them morally and physically and 
in a hundred different ways is untold. The district is an extremely 
interesting one and, happily, not much vandalism prevails. Still there is 
some unnecessary destruction of objects beautiful, and sometimes rare, 
and doubtless much enlightenment on the ways of our Creator’s living 
works, and much education of the dormant capacity for the appreciation 
of beauty is needed by the elder inhabitants of our district, parish and 
neighbourhood. 
Kensington Br..\nch. — A drawing-room meeting was held in 
March, at the residence of Sir Julian and Lady Danvers. The Earl of 
Stamford (one of the vice-presidents) occupied the chair, and letters 
expressing regret at their inability to attend were read from Sir J. 
Lubbock (president), Mr. Britten, F.L.S. (editor of the Society’s 
magazine. Nature Notes), and Mrs. Brightwen. The Earl of Stam- 
ford, in opening the meeting, referred to his being a descendant of Gilbert 
White’s brother, of Selborne, the distinguished naturalist, from whom 
the Society takes its name, and went on to set forth the objects of the 
Society. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, Mr. Aubyn Trevor- Battye, the 
Rev. H. E. U. Bull, and Mr. Nicholson were amongst the speakers. Sir 
M. Grant Duff contended that too much time was spent on unnecessary 
subjects in schools, whereas the study and love of Natural History vvas 
not sufficiently encouraged. Special reference was made to the wearing 
of ospreys and birds of paradise feathers, and also to the disfigurement of 
the face of Nature by advertisements and the ruthless slaughter of otters 
and beavers for their fur. A resolution was moved by the chairman ex- 
pressing the full sympathy of the meeting with the objects and work of 
the Selborne Society, and was unanimously carried. 
New Forest and Southampton.— The Honorary Secretary, The 
Rev. J. E. Kelsall, states that as the members of this Branch are very 
scattered he has not attempted to call them together, but he endeavours 
to spread the Society’s views by distributing pamphlets and by writing 
every month in the “New Forest Magazine,” which circulates in fourteen 
parishes. 
He has also given lectures on “ Birds,” in about twenty Hampshire 
towns and villages, sometimes obtaining for the purpose the beautiful 
lantern-slides of the Society for the Protection of Birds. 
H 
