290
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
Birds, played on gramophone records, each record being prefaced by an explanation
of the various songsters included on it, the whole arranged by the Honorary
Secretary.
Twenty-three members attended.
ORDINARY MEETING (850th Meeting).
SATURDAY, 24th FEBRUARY, 1945.
This meeting, held at 2 o'clock on the above afternoon, at "Brooklands,"
Churchfields, Woodford, was attended by nearly 30 members. In the absence
through indisposition of the President, Miss G. Lister was unanimously voted
to the chair.
On behalf of the Council of the Club, and in anticipation of the annual
meeting to be held in March, the Hon. Secretary nominated Dr. Frank W. Jane,
Ph.D., D.Sc., F.L.S., to fill the vacancy then to be caused by the retirement, at
his own request, of Mr. S. Hazzledine Warren, F.G.S., as President : Miss
Greaves seconded the nomination.
Mr. Pratt exhibited some excellent large-scale photographs of Nightingales
and Whitethroats on their nests, taken by himself from a hide in the Wanstead
Sewage Works in 1940.
Mr. Ross showed specimens of Didymium laxifida and D. trachysporum, two
rare mycetozoans from Epping Forest. He also gave a report on the occurrence
of the nycetozoa in the Forest in 1944, totalling 64 species, seen by him during
the year.
Mr. Thompson showed a cluster of sporangia of another mycetozoan, Didymium
squamulosum, on leaves on a damp ditchbank at Loughton.
Miss Lister exhibited and read extracts from a recent memoir on the late Sir
David Prain, a former esteemed president of the Club.
The Curator showed a young plant of the rare aquatic, Damasonium stellatum,
from a South Herts, locality, the first record of this plant from that county for
some 85 years.
He also exhibited an Iron Stirrup, found in 1935 during alterations in the
foundation of the Northern Outfall Sewer in High Street, Stratford : the specimen
had been identified by the London Museum authorities as "quite definitely" of
the Viking period (10th century a.d.). It is tempting to suggest that this stirrup
may be a relic of the defeat of the invader in a.d. 895 when we read that a large body
of Vikings pushed up the River Lea as far as Ware, where they formed a camp ;
but King Alfred the Great diverted the Lea in such a way as to leave the Danish
vessels high and dry, so that the entire fleet was captured.
He also showed a specimen of micaceous sandstone exhibiting depressions of
rainprints, and explained the manner of their formation.
Mr. Thompson further exhibited a couple of quartzite knives made and used
by the Arunta tribe of Central Australia, a people who, until their modern contact
with Europeans, were still in a Neolithic stage of culture, not acquainted with the
use of metals : the knives shown were hafted by means of gum and were provided
with bark and string sheaths for safe handling.
Mr. Reynolds exhibited a gold coin of the Emperor Valentinian, found in
his garden in excellent preservation.
Mr. Thompson read a paper on "The River-Walls of Essex," which he
illustrated by various photographs, etc., from the Museum Pictorial Survey
Collection : an interesting discussion ensued, in which Messrs. Mathieson,
Ward and others joined.
ANNUAL MEETING (851st Meeting).
SATURDAY, 31ST MARCH, 1945.
This meeting was held at "Brooklands,"' 37, Churchfields, Woodford, at
2 o'clock on the above afternoon. A regrettable oversight in fixing the date six