53
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB—REPORTS OF
MEETINGS.
ORDINARY MEETING (735TH MEETING).
SATURDAY, 27TH OCTOBER, 1934.
This Meeting was held in the Physics Lecture Theatre of the Municipal
College, Romford Road, Stratford, at 3 o'clock on the above afternoon,
with the President, Mr. William E. Glegg, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U., in the chair.
Forty-eight members attended.
Before commencing the business of the meeting, the President referred
to the recent lamented decease of Miss Ellen Willmott, and moved that
a letter of condolence be sent from the Club to the deceased lady's relatives.
Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones, in supporting the motion, spoke apprecia-
tively of Miss Willmott's character and attainments. The vote was
carried in silence.
Mr. H. W. Scourfield, of 15, Quebec Road, Ilford, was elected a
member of the Club.
This meeting having been reserved for exhibits and short papers by
members, the following communications were made:—
Miss G. Lister exhibited, and presented to the herbarium, a specimen
of Euphorbia virgata (probably variety esulifolia), a casual which she had
found last summer at Bush Wood, Wanstead: the species is a native of
S.E. Europe and W. Asia, and has not before been recorded from Essex.
Thanks were accorded to the donor.
The President exhibited skins of Land Rail, Water Rail, Spotted Crake,
Little Crake and Baillon's Crake, and described their respective status
in our county.
He also showed a young male Sparrowhawk, this being the last bird
skinned by the late J. E. Harting, when 791/2 years of age in 1920, as
the label, in Harting's writing, testified.
Dr. Jane exhibited drawings of seedlings of Utricularia vulgaris, and
described, by means of lantern diagrams, the method of germination
of the seeds.
Mr. Bull showed a collection of prehistoric flint implements and
pottery sherds, all found by himself in the Danbury neighbourhood; a
very interesting collection.
Mr. Harley showed a series of lantern photographs illustrating the
cockle industry of Leigh, and gave an account of the processes involved
in boiling the cockles for food.
Mr. Main exhibited Ricciocarpus natans growing on mud, together
with Azolla.
Mr. Scourfield showed the same species of Ricciocarpus growing
floating on water, and pointed out that the pendent scales found in the
floating specimens were absent in those forms which grew on mud. He
also exhibited an exceptionally large form of Daphnia pulex from Epping
Forest, and described the formation of ephippial eggs in the female, in
preparation for the winter period of rest.
Mr. Mothersole exhibited a nesting box for swallows, designed by
himself, which had proved satisfactory and had enabled him to secure
photographs of the parent birds feeding the nestlings.