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though several times pumped out, and another — or more pro- 
bably a succession of others — having had a nest for eleven years 
in succession in a roadside letter-box in Scotland, where passing 
boys naturally could not resist the temptation of dropping an 
occasional pebble in upon the nest. 
Mr. J. L. Otter, the Hon. Treasurer, in supporting the 
resolution, alluded to the financial position of the Society, which 
had, he said, undoubtedly suffered from the drafting of many 
of the members into branches, so that a smaller contribution 
was received from them individually by the central Society than 
formerly. The work of the Society, especially in printing and 
disseminating leaflets — one of its most effective modes of opera- 
tion — had in consequence been crippled, and an effort was 
necessary to place the Society once more on a satisfactory 
financial basis, with a balance on the right side. 
The adoption of the Report having been carried unanimously, 
Professor Boulger, the Hon. Editor, proposed the re-election of 
the President, Vice-Presidents and officers, with the addition to 
the list of vice-presidents of the names of Dr. G. B. Longstaff 
and G. M. Murray, Esq., F.R.S., Keeper of the Botanical De- 
partment in the Museum of Natural History. In doing so he 
alluded to some of an editor’s difficulties, such as contributions 
written on both sides of the paper ; illustrated the constant need 
for such a society by pointing out the defectiveness of our laws 
as to cruelty to animals — evidenced in a recent case at West- 
minster Police Court, where Mr. Shiel, the presiding magistrate, 
whilst admitting that he did not like the law, was compelled to 
discharge a man, charged with gross cruelty to a rat, because it 
was not a domestic animal — and appealed to the members present 
to enlist new members to extend the Society’s operations more 
widely over the kingdom, and increase its power for good. 
The Right Hon. Sir Edward Fry, in seconding the resolu- 
tion, suggested that there was no ground for discouragement 
in the fact that thirteen years’ work had had little effect upon 
fashion in the matter of wearing birds’ feathers, since Martin’s 
Act itself was only some fifty years old, and already there was 
the hopeful sentiment that its provisions required extension so 
as to include wild as well as domesticated animals. He was of 
opinion that landowners should be given some protection, which 
they had not at present, against those depredators who came 
down by train from our great centres of population and carried 
off the wild flowers and ferns wholesale. 
The resolution having been carried unanimously, C. W. Rad- 
cliffe Cooke, Esq., M.P., proposed a vote of thanks to Sir John 
Lubbock for presiding, and in so doing expressed his own deter- 
mination to do all he could to promote so useful a society in 
Herefordshire, and alluded to his own advocacy during last year 
of the adoption in England of that excellent American institu- 
tion, Arbor Day, he being specially interested in the planting 
in Kent of vintage apples in addition to edible varieties, so as 
