Two botanical papers of interest were likewise laid before the meeting:—"On the Geographical Distribution of the Meliaceæ," by M. Cassimir De Candolle; and a "Note on the Disarticulation of Branches," by Mr. R. Irwin Lynch.
May 3, 1877.— Prof. Allman, F.R.S., President, in the chair.
Mr. James Paton, of the Kelvin Grove Museum, Glasgow, was elected a Fellow.
The demise during last year of three veteran Biologists, Von Baer, Brongniart, and Ehrenberg, having caused vacancies in the list of Foreign Members, the following gentlemen, at this meeting, were duly elected among the honorary fifty holding membership:—
M. Pierre Du Charte, of Paris, a botanist of great repute, distinguished alike for his valuable memoirs on physiological and teratological as well as other branches of Botany.
Prof. Carl Gegenbaur, of Heidelberg (formerly of Jena), whose labours and philosophical investigations into the structure and development of both vertebrate and invertebrate animals mark him as one of the greatest comparative anatomists of the day. His researches on the Heteropoda have laid the foundation of our knowledge of this group. His monograph 'On the Shoulder Girdle of Vertebrates' is now a classic, and the 'Grundzüge der Vergleichende Anatomie' has no equal as a text-book, considering the original views therein, and as an exponent of the present stand-point of a philosophical Zoology.
Prof. Rudolph Leuchart, of Leipzig, chiefly distinguished for his studies on the morphology and physiology of the lower groups of animals. His researches on the Siphonophora, the Ctenophora, the parasitic and other worms have largely contributed to a knowledge of these forms. He was the first to show the necessity for the dismemberment of Cuvier's group of the Radiata, which resulted in the establishment of the group Cœlenterata. In the 'Archiv fur Naturgeschichte' his valuable annual retrospects of the progress of knowledge in researches among the lower Invertebrates have been of immense assistance to zoological co-workers.
The first paper read and discussed was "On the Sacral Flexus and Sacral Vertebræ of Lizards," by Prof. Mivart and Prof. R. Clarke. It has of late been recognized that in any attempt to answer the question, which vertebra of any lower animal answers to the first sacral vertebra of man, the nervous distribution quite as much as the bone relations require ample consideration. The authors discuss the researches of Professors Gegenbaur and Hofmann, and then proceed to describe their own dissections of the parts in question in the Chameleon, the Green Lizard, the Common Teguexin, the Iguana, the Monitor, and others. Afterwards they institute
