Geological Society. 291 



A new Bat found adhering to the bark of a pollard willow, and 

 which the author names brevimanus, is discriminated in this Me- 

 moir from the auritus, which together with barbastellus make up 

 Geoffroy's subgenus Plecotus of the Vespertilionidae. 



Spec. Char. P. brevimanus, Lesser long-eared Bat, " vellere 

 supra rufo-fusco, subtus albescente ; auriculis oblongis, capite haud 

 duplo longioribus; trago ovato-lanceolato ; cauda antibrachium 

 longitudine aequanti, apice acuto." 



The difference in absolute size, in the relative proportions of the 

 parts, in the colour, and in the apparent habits, seem to require the 

 making it a distinct species. 



March 18. — The chair having been taken by A. B. Lambert, Esq. 

 V.P., Edward Forster, Esq. the Treasurer of the Society, communi- 

 cated to the meeting the afflicting tidings which had arrived during 

 the day, of the decease of Sir James Edward Smith, their eminent 

 and much-beloved President, — an office to which he had been ap- 

 pointedby the annual and unanimous choice of the Society from its 

 first establishment in 1788, till his death. The Society immediately 

 adjourned. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Feb. 15. — This day being the Anniversary, after the election of 

 Officers and Council, as noticed in our last Number, a Report from 

 the Auditors and Council was read and approved j after which the fol- 

 lowing Address was delivered from the chair by W. H. Fitton, M.D. 

 F.R.S. &c the President of the Society. 



Gentlemen of the Geological Society. 

 You have just received from your Council a report on the condition of 

 your finances j with a statement of the accessions to your number du- 

 ring the past year, and of the measures adopted for advancing the wel- 

 fare of the Institution. It remains for me to lay before you a few 

 remarks on the branch of knowledge which the Geological Society 

 is intended to promote : and what I shall offer upon this subject will 

 be confined, in a great measure, to the state of Geology in this coun- 

 try ; since neither have my opportunities of acquiring information 

 during the past year enabled me to give, nor does my duty appear 

 to call for, a more extended view j— though such periodical reports in 

 other hands, and on more suitable occasions, have been frequently 

 attended with advantage. 



We have had since our last Anniversary to regret the loss of one of 

 our foreign members. Mr. Brocchi, whose death, according to the 

 accounts we have received, took place in Egypt, whither he had been 

 invited to discharge the duties of a mining Engineer, is distinguished 

 in the recent scientific history of Italy by numerous contributions to 

 the Geology of that country ; — and his principal work "On the Fossil 

 Conchology of the Subapennine Hills," abounds in valuable obser- 

 vations, and in proofs of accuracy and acuteness in the comparison 

 of the fossil and existing species. His talents, however, were not 

 merely those of an observer $ — his general views were always wide 



2 P 2 and 



