NOTICES OF MEETINGS. 93 

NOTICES OF MEETINGS. 
THE BLACKBURN FIELD NATURALISTS’ SOCIETY. CONVER- 
SAZIONE.—The first meeting and conversazione for the present year of the 
Field Naturalists’ Society was held in the Free Library on Thursday evening, 
Feb. 16th, under the presidency of the Mayor (Mr. John Lund). The entrance 
hall and room were decorated with valuable hothouse plants, sent by the 
President of the Society, Major-General Fielden, M.P. There was a large and 
influential attendance. 
The Mayor, in opening the proceedings, said he was much pleased to preside, 
and, if he were permitted to give an opinion, would say to the members that to 
be practical and definite should be the aim of the Society. There were so many 
specialists and workers in connection with many learned societies that that 
Society should not be too ambitious, and attempt to rival those of more favour- 
able position. Its labours should be more particularly directed tq add to our 
knowledge of the fields and flowers, &c., which one could see within an easy 
distance of home. The production of original papers should be encouraged, 
and efforts should be made by those who possessed any special information to 
convey it to others as opportunity offered. Photographs, objects noticed, and 
even a list of the trees and plants in the Park, or the varieties of stones in the 
streets, would not be without interest. Any one who had read Gilbert White’s 
‘* History of Selborne,”? knew how much might be done within a limited area 
of observation. He was glad to know that two very creditable collections of 
flowering plants had been made during the year—one by a lady, and the other 
by a gentleman. He was also told that a most interesting series of geological 
specimens had been collected during the year by their hon. secretary. A gen- 
tleman had also made progress in collecting mosses; but he did not know all 
they had been doing during the past year, or what they proposed to do during 
the present, except from the programme which had been put into his hands. It 
was pleasing to see the efforts put forth by the council of the Society in provid- 
ing subjects adapted to interest the members. 
The Rev. J. Shortt, one of the vice-presidents, read a paper, of which the 
following is an extract :—The title of the Society should, he said, furnish him 
with his theme—the study of nature in the field. What nature really was could 
not be learned from human imagination, which it infinitely surpassed ; nor from 
books, but from herself—sight of her own face. A professor of natural history 
in the last century at a certain university was a man of great book-lore ; but, 
having found a sparrow in his library, after much thought he pronounced it to 
be acrow. He had read many books, but not the book of nature, and mis- 
takes, not indeed so glaring, but in substance as bad must be made, unless we 
go to the actual reality itself. Taking the word ‘‘ Field” in its most restricted 
sense, every such enclosure near Blackburn might yield matter for very inte- 
resting thought. If it is rocky, those barren stones once bore the weight of 
vast forests, part of whose timber we now burn in our grates ascoal. They 
could tell of trees of huge size, but uncouth shape and form that for ages and 
ages waved above them. And if these stones could tell of their own origin, 
they could give account of many changes in extent and level of sea and land. 
A brickfield, so repulsive to others, was to them an object of even weird inte- 
rest, for it spoke of a time when England was like what Greenland is now, with 
great glaciers streaming forth from the hills through the valleys to the sea, and 
sending forth at their extremities the ground-up mud that now constitutes our 
brick-clay. A sandy field speaks of a time when the site, where they were now, 
lay many feet under the sea—a sea that gradually stole upon the land, and as 
gradually left it; and on the bosom of which icebergs floated, melting as they 
proceeded southward. Nature, studied in the field, told them these surprising but 
true tales. The grass of our neighbouring fields had its own marvel to unfold 
