session 1903-1904. 
xxi 
The following papers were read :— 
1. “ Cheese-mites and some other Mites.” By John Hopkinson, 
F.L.S., F.G.S., F.B.M.S., See. Bay Soc., etc. ( Transactions, 
Yol. XII, pp. 69-72.) 
2. “ On the Occurrence of Sir ex noctilio and Sir ex gig as in 
Hertfordshire.” By A. E. Gibbs, E.L.S., F.lt.H.S. ( Transactions , 
Yol. XII, pp. 73-76.) 
3. “Notes on some Hertfordshire Mammalia.” By A. E. Gibbs, 
F.L.S., F.B.H.S. ( Transactions , Yol. XII, pp. 135-136.) 
Specimens were exhibited by Mr. Gibbs in illustration of his 
papers; and he also exhibited a bat taken at St. Albans which he 
believed to be the whiskered bat ( Vespertilio my st acinus')* 
4. “ Beport on the Conference of Delegates to tfie British 
Association at Belfast in 1902.” By John Hopkinson, F.L.S., 
F.G.S., Y.P.B. Met. Soc. 
The Conference met on the 11th and 16th of September in the 
Queen’s College, Professor W. W. Watts, M.A., presiding at each 
meeting. Mr. H. George Fordham was the Society’s Delegate. 
First Meeting. 
This meeting was devoted to the Chairman’s Address, the con¬ 
sideration of the Beport of the Corresponding Societies’ Committee, 
and to a paper entitled “ A Plea for a Pigmentation Survey of 
School Children in Ireland,” by Mr. J. F. Tocher. 
The Chairman in his Address said that this Conference was the 
only body which gives a kind of corporate existence and standing 
to the local Societies as a whole, bringing the Societies into touch 
with one another, and it was the only hope that at present exists 
for united action and systematic work. The annual printing of 
a list of Societies known to be doing important work, with an 
index of their publications, was a most useful guide to those who 
were desirous of working up the literature of any area. It was 
difficult to obtain these publications a few years after date, and the 
Association had most wisely treasured those which had been sent 
to it, forming the nucleus of a valuable and unique collection which 
he hoped would be placed where widely accessible. 
The local Societies were especially noted for their wide-reaching 
aims and the all-embracing list of subjects which they pursue, not 
less than for the steady, persevering persistence with which they 
will follow up lines of enquiry often as tedious as they are 
important. Local facilities or individual genius often placed one 
Society or other on some bias or enabled it to do brilliant work in 
some one direction. The force of such example was never lost 
upon other Societies, which might extend and even amplify the 
results thus obtained. The Conference had the power, too little 
* This was subsequently determined to be a variety of the pipistrelle (Vesperugo 
pipistrellus). 
