His interest in the river was not confined to the salmon, and he made some interesting observations on the propagation of lampreys, the spawning of minnows, and the breeding of eels. A short note on the last-named topic, by Mr. Jeremiah Garnett, is also printed. On the formation of ice at the bottom of rivers, there are two papers, one by Mr. Thomas Garnett, and the other by his brother, the Rev. Richard Garnett. A shower of gossamer, the thread produced by the aëronautic spider, is recorded as seen on the hills near Blackburn. One of Mr. Garnett’s friends was the unfortunate Mr. Joseph Ritchie, of Otley, who accompanied Captain Lyon’s expedition to Fezzan, and died there in 1819. To this there is an allusion in the following passage:—“In conclusion, allow me to say that the leisure hours which a somewhat busy life has enabled me to spend in these pursuits, have been some of the happiest of my existence, and have awakened and cherished such an admiration of nature, and such a love of the country and its scenes, as I think can never be appreciated by the inhabitants of large towns, and which I cannot describe so well as in the words of one of my friends, in a beautiful apostrophe to England, when leaving it, never to return:— ‘To thee Whose fields first fed my childish fantasy; Whose mountains were my boyhood’s wild delight, Whose rocks, and woods, and torrents were to me The food of my soul’s youthful appetite; Were music to my ear—a blessing to my sight.’” Why do not more of the dwellers in rural districts employ their often abundant leisure in natural history studies? The Traffords of Trafford.