COUNCIL FOR 1874 . 
11 
tors, who have been able to acquire some objects of great interest 
in which we are still deficient, should give them over to the 
Museum, for the gratification and instruction of the public. 
In the Department of the Library several additions of im¬ 
portance have been made during the year. Among these are 
the following valuable works: Littre’s Dictionnaire de la 
Langiie Francaise, 4 vols., 4to., presented by Mr. E. W. 
Smithson; Stukeley’s Medallic History of Marcus Aurelius 
Carausius; and Yaillant’s Numismata Imperatorum Eoman- 
orum pimstantiora a Julio Csesare ad Postiimum et Tyrannos; 
presented by Mr. J. F. Walker, F. G-. S.; Camden’s Britannia ; 
Speed’s History of Great Britain ; Heath’s Wars of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland; and Brimstone’s History of the World, 
presented by Captain T. E. Smith; Lyell’s Antiquity of Man, 
4th edition, and Geikie’s Great Ice Age, purchased. 
The Curator of the Ornithological Department has to report 
the addition of the Shear-water Petrel (Procellaria piiffimis) 
to the Eudston collection; this bird, though common in the 
Hebrides, is only an occasional visitant here; it was picked up 
dead in a field near Shipton, having probably flovv^n against the 
telegraph wires, and was kindly presented by the Hon. Payan 
Dawnay. He has also to call the attention of Ornithologists 
to the small quantity of Swallows during the past year; the 
weather was extremely cold about the general time of their 
arrival, but he has yet to learn the cause of their scarcity. In 
his Eeport, 1872, he mentioned that the black Swans on Wel- 
ham Lake, near Malton, had bred in that year in the month of 
November. He has now to state that since their acclimatisation 
in the past year they bred in April, and hatched six birds from 
six eggs on the 6th of that month, two of which Mr. Bower was 
kind enough to present to the Corporation of York. Mr. Bower 
remarks they are jealous on his lake of the white ones, and 
though they are the smaller birds, yet they drive the former 
away when they come in their direction. This does not seem 
to be the case on the Ouse, where they seem to harmonise 
together. They utter a shrill cry when suddenly alarmed. 
