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THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB—REPORTS OF MEETINGS.
ORDINARY MEETING (822nd MEETING).
SATURDAY, 31ST JANUARY, 1942.
This Meeting was, as usual, held at "Brooklands," 37, Churchfields, Wood-
ford, at 2 o'clock on the above date, with the President in the chair. Twenty-one
Members attended.
Miss Winifred U. Flower, of 25, Grange Court, Loughton, Essex; and
Miss Marjorie R. Newton, of "Brooklands," 37, Churchfields, South
Woodford, E.18,
were elected to membership of the club.
Miss Prince exhibited a selection of herbarium plants from Syria, including
the "Rose of Sharon," the "Hyssop" and "Abraham's Oak," and quoted
various references made to these plants in Holy Writ.
Mr. Ross showed specimens of mycetozoa found in Epping Forest during
last December, including Margarita metallica, Diderma montana and Liceopsis
lobata, the last a rare form in the Forest.
The Curator exhibited a Green Sandpiper, shot in fields (now built over)
at Knotts Green, Leyton, about 1863 : this specimen had been given by J. G,
Barclay, who was the gunner, to Mr. Arthur Lister, of Leytonstone, whose
daughter, Miss Gulielma Lister, had recently presented it to the Stratford Museum.
The exhibitor took the opportunity to announce to the Meeting that Miss Lister
had recently most generously presented to the Museum the whole of the birds
purchased by her father at the sale of Henry Doubleday's collection at Epping
in 1870.
The President showed two flint implements obtained by him from the
"Lyonesse surface," a datable deposit on the Essex coast, which had been re-
chipped from earlier polished celts : one of these was a rough axe, the other a
hammer stone.
A further set of topographical views of Woodford, from the Pictorial Survey,
was also on view.
In the absence of the author, Mr. William E. Glegg, a paper on "The Duck
"Decoys of Essex" was read in abstract by the Hon. Secretary; in illustration
of the subject, Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's book, "The Book of Duck Decoys,"
1886, and some photographs of decoys, were exhibited.
The Meeting was adjourned at 4 o'clock.
ORDINARY MEETING (823rd MEETING).
SATURDAY, 28TH FEBRUARY, 1942.
This Meeting was held at "Brooklands," 37, Churchfields, Woodford, on
the above date, and was devoted to special exhibits and short communications
from members. The chair was taken by the President at 2 o'clock. Twenty
members attended.
Dr. Heeley sent for exhibition specimens of Click Beetles (Acriotes lineatus,
A. obscurus and A. sputator) and also species of Athous, Cryptohypmts and
Corymbites showing their larvae (Wireworms), together with diagrams and
printed matter, all intended to demonstrate the present extreme urgency of com-
bating these agricultural pests. Dr. Heeley stressed the fact that wireworms
may be regarded as the chief cause of failures in crop-production at the present
time, when so much old grassland is being ploughed up as a war emergency
provision : consequently, special measures are now being taken throughout the
country to examine scientifically newly-broken arable land and to advise farmers
how to minimise the damage due to these insects.
Dr. Jane, in collaboration with Messrs. Woodhead and Tweed, sent specimens
of the alga Trentepohlia aurea, a member of the Chlorophyceae (grass-green
algae), in which the chlorophyll is masked by orange-red haematochrome and
which forms sheets of reddish growth on rocks in mountain regions. Trentepohlia
forms the algal component in certain lichens, such as Graphis.
The same exhibitors showed herbarium specimens of two rare British
phanerogams, Mibora verna, a small tufted annual grass, seldom over three inches
high, found native in this country only in Anglesea and (as a casual) in Hampshire,