I , 



THE NATOMLIST. 



ON THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF BIRDS. 



Delivered before the Members of the Ornithological Society ofTjONB-on. 

 The Monthly General Meeting of this Society was held on Friday, Feh. 2, 

 J. R. Gowen, Esq., in the chair. — The attendance, notwithstaanding the severity 

 of the weather, was more numerous than on any former occasion. A great 

 number of ladies occupied the front seats. 



The Report of the Council stated that Mr. Blyth had been appointed 

 Assistant-Secretary and Curator of the Museum, the latter office being rendered 

 necessary by the munificent loan of the Hon. W. T. Fiennes. Several donations 

 were announced : among them was a collection of anatomical preparations, pre- 

 sented by Mr. Bartlett. It was stated that the collection of living birds in 

 St. James's Park had sustained very little injury from the severity of the weather, 

 and that arrangements had been made for procuring a great number of rare and 

 beautiful species in the course of the ensuing spring. 



Professor Bell, Robert Blagden Hall, Esq., M.P., and Anthony White, 

 M.D., were elected members of the Society. 



The report having been approved, the Chairman called upon Mr. Blyth to 

 open the discussion of the day, on " The geographical distribution of Birds." 



Mr. Blyth then came forward and delivered an elaborate discourse on the 

 geographical distribution of birds, pointing out how a variety of groups, as well as 

 species, are altogether confined to particular regions, whereas other groups, and 

 some of comparatively trivial value, are diffused over the greater portion of the 

 world. The important revolutions which, in the course of ages, have gradually 

 taken place in every locality, not only as regards the succession of inhabitant 

 species, but also, in many instances, in the types of form on which these have 

 been respectively modified, were descanted on at considerable length : exemplifi- 

 cations of some of the more prominent of these changes being necessarily, how- 

 ever, adduced from other departments of Natural History ; as the known fossil 

 remains of birds are proportionally extremely few, sufficient merely to awaken 

 curiosity, without leading to any special conclusions ; the reliques of this class 

 of animals being, for obvious reasons, much less liable to become entombed in 

 deposits, than those of the other divisions of Vertebrata. Taking the "vertical 

 series," however, as it is termed, or the succession of races which inhabited the 

 same locality during different eras, and what is known as the " horizontal 

 vol. in. — NO. xix. 2 A 



