150 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
Hon, Librarian: Mr. Stephen J. Barns.
Hon. Secretary: Mr. Percy Thompson, F.L.S.
Hon. Editor: Mr. Percy Thompson, F.L.S.
Hon. Asst. Curator at Queen Elizabeth's Lodge: Mrs. Vera Smith.
Hon. Auditors: Mr. C. Hall Crouch and Mr. J. Ross.
The President then from the Chair read his Presidential Address on
"History in Botanical Study." At its conclusion Mr. P. Thompson moved,
Mr. Avery seconding, that the best thanks of the meeting be tendered to
the President for his Address and that he be asked to allow it to be printed
in the Club's journal. The motion was carried by acclamation.
Bewick's Swan (Cygnus bewicki) in Essex.—This rare visitor was
first noticed on February 5th, 1931, by Mr. B. Causton on a pond on
Wanstead Flats, near the entrance to the City of London Cemetery. On
February 21st it visited the Perch Pond in Wanstead Park, but returned
later to the Flats Pond, where it was seen by a number of ornithologists
on March 3rd and 4th. When first observed it was rather wild, but it
at length became so tame that it could be watched at a few yards range.
On March 11th this pond was almost entirely frozen over and only a few
Mute Swans remained there. On March 15th Bewick's Swan spent
the day, which was fine and still, on the Basin Pond, Wanstead Park,
when the unfrozen surface of the water was hardly ruffled. Next day,
the wind being easterly, the bird had left, and on the 17th was seen again
on the Flats Pond, where it remained till the 21st March, and perhaps
later. Bewick's Swan is much smaller than either the Whooper or the
Mute Swan ; from the former it is also distinguished by the large roundish
orange patch at the base of the bill, and from the Mute Swan by having
no black frontal knob. It breeds on the low-lying islands and at the
mouths of the great rivers in North Siberia, in Novaya Zemlia and in
North-east Russia, where its nesting haunts were first ascertained by
Henry Seebohm and Harvie Brown in June, 1875. It winters in the
British Isles, Norway, Finland, Germany, and sometimes as far south as
the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas, also in Central Asia. In his History
of the Birds of Essex Mr. Glegg refers to Bewick's Swan as the rarest of the
swans that occur in our country, where the last record of its appearance
was in December, 1890; he also states that on only two occasions had
the bird been observed on inland waters in Essex.—G. Lister.
Claytonia perfoliata at Little Baddow.—This North American plant,
which has already been recorded from the Colchester district, from
Dedham, from Danbury Common, and from Loughton, has also appeared
(1930) by a shallow ditch in Rodney Lane, Little Baddow, some 21/2 miles
distant from Danbury Common.—F. W. Thorrington.