Members.-The diminution in numbers noticeable since the beginning of the war, has continued during the past year, The Society began the year with a total of 326, and ends it with a total of 313, of whom 12 are life members and 301 annual subscribers, having lost one life member and nine annual subscribers by death, and 15 annual subscribers by resignation; whilst only ten new members were elected. There is thus a net loss of 13 members during the year. By the death of Mr, H. E. Medlicott the Society has lost not merely one of its vice-presidents, but one who for many years acted as one of the honorary secretaries of the Society and was responsible for the arrangements of the annual excursions. Though he had resigned that office for some years past, he remained to the last one of the most active members of the committee, always ready to help on the work and interests of the Society in every way that he could. In the case of our own Society as in that of so many other institutions in North Wilts his death has left a gap which will not easily be filled. By the death of Mr. C. H Talbot, of Lacock, too, the Society has lost another of its most prominent members, who acted as honorary secretary for five years from 1875 to 1881, and as president of the Society from 1897 to 1899. Until his health no longer permitted his presence he was one of the most regular attendants both at the annual meetings and at the quarterly committee meetings, and took a leading part in the proceedings. A third loss is that of Mr. Edward Cook, to whose interest and care the foundation of the collection of Wiltshire Lepidoptera at the Museum is due. Up to the time of his death he acted as curator of this collection, and one of the most pressing needs of the Society at this moment is an entomologist who will take his place and carry on his work in the Museum collection. Obituary notices of all three members are to be found in the Magazine.

Finance. The Society's accounts, which will be published in the June" number of the Magazine, now due, show that on January 1st, 1916, there was a balance on the General Account of £56 19s.9d. The final instalment of £11 1s. 11d. was repaid by the Museum Enlargement Fund to the General Fund, this being the balance of the £50 borrowed from the General Fund in 1912. The Museum

Maintenance Fund also repaid £6 5s. 2d. of the sum borrowed from the General Fund to pay for the repairs of the roof of the Museum. There was at the end of the year 1916 a balance of £64 13s. 61⁄2d. to the credit of the General Account, or £7 13s. 94d. more than at the end of the previous year. The Museum Maintenance Fund, which showed a balance at the beginning of the year of £7 6s. 6d., received during the year £31 4s. 6d. from subscriptions, and £1 19s. 7 d. from admissions and donations at the Museum, both these items being slightly less than the corresponding amounts received in 1915. On the other hand a larger sum, £1 8s. 6d., was received from the sale of catalogues. The chief extra expenses were the replacement of the boiler for the heating apparatus, at a cost of £10 4s., and the insurance against aircraft, which cost £3 10s, The balance in hand at the end of the year was £7 4s. 10d., or 1s. 8d. less than that with which the year began. On this fund, therefore, the receipts and expenditure almost exactly balanced each other. It has to be remembered, however, that there is still a debt due from this fund to the General Fund for money borrowed for the repairs of the roof. The Museum Enlargement Fund has for several years been entirely absorbed in repaying the loan from the General Fund of £50 in 1912, but as the last instalment of this was paid during 1916, and there was a balance of £2 Os. 9d. at the end of the year, it is hoped that this fund, which is derived from the rent of the caretaker's house, may now gradually accumulate and form a nucleus of a fund for future enlargement. On the whole, therefore, the financial condition of the Society at the end of the year 1916 was a satisfactory improvement on its condition at the end of 1915. The fund raised for the purchase of the Brooke Collection in the previous year, which is quite separate from the other funds, after the final payment for the fitting up of the new cases at the Museum, showed a balance of £20 10s. 11d. in hand. This has been invested in the War Savings Association as the nucleus of a new fund, to be called "The Museum Purchase Fund," which shall be available in the future for the purchase of Wiltshire objects for the Museum,

The Museum and Library.-There have been no such sensational

additions to the Museum collections during the year as the Brooke Collection provided in 1915-16, but during the residence of the Curator and Mrs. Cunnington at Devizes, for several months this year, considerable progress has been made by the latter in the arrangement and labelling of this collection. The pottery and other objects found by Captain and Mrs. Cunnington during their excavation at Lidbury in 1914, have been given by them to the Museum and placed in the cases. Mr. Brooke has also given several recent finds to be added to the cases containing his collection. In accordance with the resolution passed at the last general meeting, that various objects which have no connection with Wiltshire should be sold to make room for purely local collections, the Victoria and Albert Museum has purchased a coppergilt chalice for £8 8s.; the Cambridge Museum has taken certain of the ethnological objects for £20 10s. ; and Professor S. H. Reynolds has bought the whole of the non-Wiltshire and duplicate fossils for the Bristol University collection at £23. These fossils, some of which had never been unpacked from the boxes in which they came to the Museum 30 or 40 years ago, comprised many admirable specimens from the Continent and from other parts of England, which will be of very considerable value in a general geological collection, and it is a cause for satisfaction that they have been so usefully disposed of. So far as our own Museum is concerned they filled a great number of boxes under the cases of the Stourhead room, and crowded the drawers of the cabinets in the Natural History Room, which are now available for the proper exhibition of Wiltshire specimens. The sums derived from the sale of these various objects have been added to the balance of the " Brooke Collection Fund" to form the new "Museum Purchase Fund." The Library has received, as usual, a good many gifts, which are acknowledged in the Magazine, amongst others a series of important original drawings of Wiltshire Churches by Owen Carter, which the Librarian has been able to add to the Society's collections. The insurance of the Museum with the County Fire Office has been placed upon a new basis, the buildings of the Museum and the caretaker's house being insured for £2,000, and the books and other

contents of the Library, together with the cases and furniture of the whole Museum, for £2,500. The Committee having carefully considered the matter, decided that to insure the archæological and natural history collections was useless, as they could in no case be replaced if once destroyed.

The Bradford Barn.-The June Magazine contains an account. by Mr. A. W. N. Burder of the work of repair now happily completed, with the exception of the renewing of the two couples now propped up. It was decided that there was no immediate necessity for undertaking this renewal, desirable as it is; and the matter has been left over till after the war. A full list of subscriptions is given, and the accounts, printed with the Society's other accounts, (in the June, 1917, Magazine) show that the whole of the repairs, with the above-mentioned exception, have been carried out at a cost, including incidentals and the legal expenses of the conveyance, of £424 12s. 9d., leaving a balance in hand of £7 11s. 6d. The building is now open to the inspection of visitors at a charge of 3d. each, the keys being kept at a cottage close to Barton Farm. For this extremely satisfactory result the Society's thanks are due to Mr. Burder, through whose energy the fund was raised and the work carried through, and to Mr. Brakspear for his gratuitous services as architect.

Publications.-The December, 1916, number of the Magazine was duly published as usual and the June number for 1917 would have been in members' hands before this but for the fact that it is the Index Number of Vol. xxxix., and that owing to the war the printers are unable to carry out work as expeditiously as usual, The Society has to thank Canon Wordsworth for a gift of £4 10s. 8d., the whole cost of the illustrations of his paper on Leadenhall, a most helpful and acceptable gift in present circumstances.

EARLY BRONZE AGE INTERMENT AT THE CENTRAL FLYING SCHOOL, UPAVON.

Having heard through the Rev, G. H. Engleheart, F.S.A., that human remains and pottery had been reported to him as having been found in the course of excavations at the Central Flying School at Upavon, I went there on Dec. 2nd, 1915. Considerable excavations have been carried out on the slope just to the N. of the road from Upavon to Everley for the purpose of the erection of the officers' mess buildings for the Flying School near the Upavon end of the assemblage of buildings and hangars, Just behind the mess buildings, in chalk rubble, at a depth of 3ft. 6in. under the surface of the down, which showed no trace of any mound over it, a skeleton and drinking cup had been uncovered during November. I saw the foreman who had been in charge of the work; he could give me no clear details as to how the skeleton was lying, but Capt. T. W. Creswell told me that the head was lying towards the north-east. According to the foreman nothing besides the drinking cup was found, and unfortunately this was broken and about half of it, presumably in small pieces, was lost, before it was realised that the find was of interest, and steps were taken to preserve the remains. The foreman promised that in case of any further finds care should be taken to preserve everything. The skeleton and the fragments of the cup which had been taken care of in the R.E. office, were handed over to me by Col. Van Straubenzee for the Society's Museum.

Of the drinking cup three large fragments, and one smaller one, remain, forming about half of the rim, and rather more of the base. These give a diameter of 53in, for the rim, and 2ğin. for the base. Unfortunately some small portion of the vessel between the rim and base fragments is lost, but the height was probably about 61 inches. It belongs to Thurnam's type of "Ovoid Cups with recurved rims," Type B. I. of Abercromby, who describes its characteristics thus:" In this there is no distinct demarcation between the