THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
249
ORDINARY MEETING (843rd Meeting).
SATURDAY, 26TH FEBRUARY, 1944.
This meeting was held at "Brooklands." 37, Churchfields, Woodford, at
2 o'clock on the above date ; some 20 members attended. In the absence through
indisposition of the President, Miss G. Lister was unanimously voted to the chair.
The following candidates were elected to membership :—
Mr. R. W. Humphries, of 26, Connaught Avenue, Loughton, Essex.
Mr. W. J. Lewis, B.A., B.Sc., of 128, Belgrave Road, Wanstead, E.11.
Mr. C. B. Pratt and Mrs. E. C. Pratt, of 24b, Forest Glade, Leytonstone, E.11.
Miss Pollard exhibited and presented to the Stratford Museum as an addition
to its map-collection, a small framed map of Essex by W. H. Toms (engraver and
publisher), dated 1742 ; this tabulates the market-days of all market-towns in
the county.
The Hon. Secretary exhibited some old maps of Essex and read notes on their
makers and publishers, from Saxton's map (1576). the first map of the County on,
referring to those of Norden (1594), Speed (1605). Kip (1610), Blaeu (circa 1645),
Blome (1673), Ogilby (1675), Morden (1695), Warburton (c. 1722), Moll (c. 1724),
Kitchin (1747), Chapman and Andre (1777) and Cary (1787). He also sketched
the origin and history of the Government's Ordnance Survey, founded in 1791,
and its offspring, the Geological Survey, founded in 1835.
Dr. Heeley contributed a paper on "The Spindle Tree and its Relation to
the Beet Aphis Control," with illustrative photographs.
Mr. E. E. Turner sent "Some Random Recollections" of old Essex records
of wild plants observed by himself.
ANNUAL MEETING (844th Meeting).
SATURDAY, 25TH MARCH, 1944.
This meeting, held at "Brooklands," 37, Churchfields, Woodford, at 2 o'clock
on the above afternoon, was attended by 25 members. The President was in the
chair.
Mr. Main exhibited some living millipedes, Polydesmus sp. and sketched their
life-history. He described the manner in which the eggs were laid in a chimney-
like erection formed by the adult from its own excretions. When hatched, the
young millipedes have at first only six legs and are white in colour, becoming
dark brown in the adult stage.
Mr. Main also showed and described a living Tiger Beetle, Cicindela campestris;
he detailed the method of making the burrow m soft earth in which the larva
pupates and in which the adult beetle remains until the following Spring.
The Curator exhibited an unusually ornate Goffering Iron, found during
demolition of an old house in Plaistow last year : he also showed a remarkable
byegone, resembling a toasting-fork with seven prongs, which came from an old
cottage at Loughton some eighty or more years ago : neither the exhibitor nor
his audience could decide the purpose of this strange object, which was presented
to the Stratford Museum.
Miss Flower showed some photographic studies of her two pet field mice
which she had exhibited in the flesh at our meeting last October.
The President then gave a demonstration of the technique of the Clactonian
Prehistoric Industry, first sketching its history from Rutot s original, conception
of it, under the name "Mesvinian," as a pre-Palaeolithic phase to its now recog-
nised contemporaneity with the Acheulean period of the Palaeolithic.
At 4 o'clock the meeting adjourned for tea, following which a meeting of the
Council was held, when the recent death of a past-president of the Club, Sir David
Prain, C.I.E., C.M.G., F.R.S., was announced, and the members stood in silence
as a mark of respect to an eminent scientist and most kindly man.