226
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
The President said it was extremely important that such changeable and
vanishing things as geological sections exposed during railway and other works
should be permanently recorded for future study. He sincerely reciprocated
Prof. Meldola's wish that some members would take up the subject energetically.
Mr. Varley alluded to a camera invented by himself, by means of which it was
possible to take photographs at the rate of about three per second.
Mr. Fitch exhibited a fine specimen of the Death's-head Moth (Acherontia
atropos) and its pupa-case, bred from the larva found feeding at Maldon on the
"Tea-tree" (Lycium), exhibited at a meeting of the Club last year. The imago
emerged on July 22nd.
Mr. Fitch also exhibited a box containing specimens of Lepidoptera taken at
or near Maldon by Mr. B. G. Cole and himself. In the box were nineteen species
taken off Maldon gas-lamps from the 8th to 17th September, including Tricharia
crataegi (seven nice "varieties"), Eugonia (Ennomos), alniaria (tiliaria), E. fuscan-
taria (1), Acidalia promutata, Neuronia popularis, and Cirrhaedia xerampelina (1).
Also eighteen species of Noctua; taken at sugar mostly in Hazeleigh Hall
Wood, from 5th to 14th of September. The collection included several species
not recorded in the Rev. G. H. Raynor's paper, "The Macro-Lepidoptera of the
District around Maldon," in Trans. E. F. C, vol. iii. pp. 30-47.
Mr. Wire exhibited a number of holograph letters of the late John Brown,
F.G.S., kindly lent to him by Canon Hill, Rector of Stanway, who had given
permission for the publication of anything of interest in the letters.
Mr. W. Cole exhibited on behalf of Mr. T. Passell, of Roffey, a remarkable
collection of worked stones and stone implements from St. Leonard's Forest,
Sussex. Mr. Passell stated that in St. Leonard's Forest there is no flint, nor can
any be found within several miles. The implements, including some large celts,
scrapers, polishing stones, and arrow and spear-heads, were found scattered over
the forest, and must have been brought there, or accidentally lost by the hunters.
Two or three feet under the sand Mr. Passell had found traces of a factory for the
manufacture of implements, consisting of "cores," "flakes," and chips of flint,
with evidence of fire. The tendency of the soil in the forest, it being largely
impregnated with iron, is to darken the colour of the embedded specimens, while
those found on the surface are more or less bleached. Mr. Passell's collection
consisted of about sixty specimens, and he also sent some arrow-heads from
Tuscumbia, Alabama, U.S.A., for comparison with those from St. Leonard's
Forest, which latter were much of the same form, but not so correct in outline,
nor so well finished.
Mr. Cole also exhibited on behalf of Mr. J. French a Neolithic implement
from the Tertiary Conglomerate at Felstead, and a Palaeolithic implement from
the same place.
The Secretary also exhibited a small Herbarium of Mosses and Lichens, which
had been recently presented to the Club by Mrs. M. Smith, of Great Saling.
Mrs. Smith wrote :—"The Mosses and Lichens were collected by the late Mr.
Thomas Hall, who up to about the year 1844 lived at Coggeshall. Being
unsuccessful in business, he, about that date, parted with his collections, etc., to
raise money with which to emigrate. He was a member of the London Botanical
Society, and it is probable that some of his specimens were exchanged through
this medium, and would be marked L.B.S. If any are from Yorkshire, these
were exchanged with George Dixon, senr., the Master of Ayton School."
Mr. W. H. Dalton exhibited the specimens illustrating his paper on "Geologi-
cal Rambles in the Braintree District, etc." (ante, p. 79), which are mentioned in