THE NATURALISTS’ JOURNAL. 
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common; has been known to breed near Manchester. Snipe, 
jack snipe (Gallinago gallinula), and common sand-piper ( Totanus 
hypoleucus ), common. Common tern ( Sterna pluviatilis ), occa¬ 
sionally seen on the river Irwell; black-headed gull ( Larus ridibun- 
dus); common gull (Larus canus) and kittiwake gull Rissa 
tridadylus); all common in the winter. 
FIELD CLUBS AND SOCIETIES. 
Practical Naturalist’s Society. —A most interesting discussion is 
being carried on in the Ornithological Circulator upon the subject of “Our 
Decreasing British Avifauna ” initiated by a paper by Mr. W. G. Clarke. We 
wish our space permitted us to print this valuable paper in full, replete as it is 
with information about the birds ofThetford, Norfolk, and the neighbourhood. 
The author gives a list of nineteen birds which have verv sensibly decreased in 
numbers ; among which are the red backed shrike, which Mr. Clarke says is 
now “ exceedingly rare ” and the land rail which is “virtually extinct in the 
neighbourhood.'’ Among other facts, mention is made of the destruction of the 
eggs of the black backed gull, f 2,000 of which are sent every season as “ plovers 
eggs” to London from Scoulton Mere, fourteen miles from Thetford. Messrs. 
E. H. Blackmore and J. Robertson also contribute some interesting pieces of 
information, the latter giving a list of sixty-eight birds which have shown a 
marked diminution in numbers in Forfarshire, Fifeshireand Eastern Perthshire. 
Lambeth Field Club. —At the meeting held on May 7th a lecture on 
“The Animal Kingdom” was delivered by Mr. H. C. Richter, who is now 
well known for his artistically executed coloured diagrams, minutely exact and 
obviously the outcome of a very large amount of patient labour. Mr. Richter 
commenced with an account of the progress made in zoological science from 
the earliest times, recognising in Aristotle the first rational attempt at classifi¬ 
cation made by man. Cuvier divided the animal kingdom into four great 
classes, namely, Vertebrata, Invertebrata, Articulata and Radiata. The 
lecturer showed diagrammatically how the mammalian class, to which man 
belonged, had, in addition, to a respiratory, circulatory and (sympathetic) 
nervous system, all of which were possessed by Invertebrates, a backbone and 
a special nervous system, connected with it, and the brain, called the cerebro 
spinal system. The mouth in A T ertebrates opened on the “ hoemal surface of 
the body, or that in which the chief circulatory organs were located, while in 
invertebrates it opened on the “ neural ’’side, or that to which the chief nerves 
belonged, and they had no skeleton unless it was an external one. The verte¬ 
brata had a symmetrical nervous system, the invertebrata an unsymmetrical one 
the articulata and radiata again symmetrical nerves, which in the last division 
were disposed in rays from a centre The lecturer next showed how certain 
features of the skull distinguished mammals from birds, also the possession of 
true hairs, the secretion Of milk, and other characters. Birds were closely 
allied to reptiles, and amphibia to fishes, while the latter also approached 
mammals in having two condyles to the skull. The lowest fish, the lancelet, 
was also the lowest vertebrate animal. The various divisions of the mollusca 
were next considered, the highest, that of the cuttle-fishes, coming nearest to 
vertebrates in structure. In describing the polyzoa, a very beautiful drawing 
of a freshwater species, plumatella, was shown, followed by an equally good 
one of a “water bear,” a curious creeping creature belonging to the Arachnida. 
Special attention was given to the wonderfully constructed shells of the Radio- 
laiia and the Foraminifera, formed as thev are from animals which seem to be mere 
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