152 THE CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES' COMMITTEE
at the mouth of the river Crouch in November, 1883 (Zool. 1884,
p. 27). It was claimed by Sir Henry Mildmay as lord of the
manor, and on legal proceedings being taken to settle the
question of ownership, a verdict was found in his favour. In
October, 1887, another specimen of Rudolphi's Rorqual was
taken in the Thames off Tilbury, an account of which was given
by Mr. Walter Crouch, with an illustration, in the Essex
Naturalist, 1888, pp. 41-46.
THE
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES' COMMITTEE
OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION,
London, 1905.
REPORT OF THE CLUB'S DELEGATE.
F. W. RUDLER, I.S.O., F.G.S., Vice-President E.F.C, Secretary of the Conference
of Delegates.
[Read November 25th, 1905.]
IT is usual for the Delegates from the Local Societies to meet
in Conference during the Session of the British Association,
at its place of meeting. But as the Association met this year in
South Africa, it could hardly be expected that the Delegates
would assemble there ; and it was consequently suggested by
Mr. Whitaker, F.R.S., the Chairman of the Corresponding
Societies' Committee, that a Conference should be subsequently
held in London—a suggestion which met with the approval of
the Council of the Association. Accordingly a Conference was
held on Monday and Tuesday, October 30 and 31, at the Rooms
of the Linnean Society. It was satisfactory to find that it was
attended by nearly thirty delegates, representing places as
distant as Belfast, Perth, Glasgow, and Paisley. The Conference
was presided over by Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S., and was
in every way a most successful meeting.
The Chairman, in opening the Conference, delivered an
address, in which he dealt sympathetically on the value of the
work done by many of our local societies, but deplored the
tendency in certain quarters to allow the picnic element and
other sources of popular attraction to assert undue influence.
With regard to the evening meetings, he referred, not without
approval, to the practice of making a special feature of
"exhibits," and threw out the suggestion that papers on the
unsolved problems of science might be found extremely useful