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The article discusses the highlights of the 37th Annual General Meeting of the British Ecological Society held in the University of Oxford in Oxford, England on January 5 to 7, 1956. A soirée was held at the university's Department of Botany at which exhibits illustrating the ecological work in progress at Oxford were shown. A series of coloured slides of New Zealand vegetation were shown by professor Gordon of New Zealand. Some of the topics of the papers read at the meeting, include field populations of Calliphorine flies.

The article presents a study that examined the expectations of English migrants in New Zealand. The migration process has three distinct yet inter-dependent phases. These are emigration in which an important feature is the actual decision to move, immigration and assimilation. The first section of the questionnaire asked for ratings of expected difference between New Zealand and England over each of 21 areas. The answers were handled in two ways. First, by weighting the ratings an evaluation of the over-all expectation of change was made, while an item analysis showed the specific areas in which changes were expected. The expectations that migrants build and in which they differ from non-migrants are fairly clearly related to their motivation patterns as these were observed in the previous study. It was shown there that the migrants seem to regard New Zealand as being the same and yet different from England; with the differences clearly related to the opportunities which they constantly expect in New Zealand. The expectations that migrants build and in which they differ from non-migrants are fairly clearly related to their motivation patterns as these were observed in the previous study. It was shown there that the migrants seem to regard New Zealand as being the same and yet different from England; with the differences clearly related to the opportunities which they constantly expect in New Zealand.

The author of this article describes some of the teaching practices associated with natural history in New Zealand, Fiji, England, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. During a trip to New Zealand, the author learned that a large number of the average classroom teachers were better qualified than their American counterparts to carry on successful outdoor experiences. In Fiji, he had met Colin Marshall, a forester who had built a forestry school together with a group of high school students. He asserted that some of the laboratories in Sweden were equipped far better than any of their counterparts in America. In Norway, there was less evidence of rich equipment for the teaching of science. As a result of his association with several foreign educators, the author described the approaches to the teaching of conservation.

Recent outbreaks of hop black root-rot in England are described in relation to the disease in New Zealand and to previous records in this country. Rates of growth along detached hop storage roots were compared for several isolates of Phytophthora citricola from hop and other host plants. Isolates from New Zealand hops and recently diseased plants in England could not be distinguished from one another, but the original English isolate, obtained in 1942, appeared to be a distinct strain. A number of commercial cultivars exhibited differential responses to infection by the fungus in both detached root and entire rootstock inoculations. The cultivars Northern Brewer and Progress were amongst the most resistant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]