12 REPORT OF THE 



upper rooms of the Museum (recently devoted to antiquities) to 

 the reception of the Rudston collection of British Birds, has 

 admitted of the display of this fine collection in a manner which 

 shews the Society's appreciation of the gift, while it affords 

 greater facilities for study to those who cultivate British orni- 

 thology. The smaller insessorial species have been removed from 

 the separate cases which they occupied, and arranged in one 

 large and light glazed case, which exhibits them to the greatest 

 advantage, — a mode of arrangement for the suggestion and 

 execution of which the Society is indebted to the Secretary.* 



A specimen of Brain coral, (Mseandrina cerebriformis,) pre- 

 sented by R. Hatfeild, Esq., has proved the source of an ex- 

 tremely valuable addition to the foreign Conchological cabinet, its 

 interior being found, on examination, to be occupied by a colony 

 of perforating bivalve molluscs, including examples of at least 

 five distinct genera. Mr. James Backhouse has liberally per- 

 mitted the Keeper of the Museum to select from his extensive 

 Australian collection several recent sponges, which help to illus- 

 trate in a most instructive manner the nature of the fossil 

 zoophytes of the Flamborough chalk. 



The Curator of Botany has arranged the collection of Pyrensean 

 plants formed by Mr. Spruce, and purchased by the Society ; 

 and he has enriched the British herbarium by the liberal dona- 

 tion, from his own private collection, of about fifty species, which 

 were not already in the Museum. The collection of living plants 

 in the Conservatory has received several additions ; but the only 

 one which calls for particular notice is the contribution of several 

 additional species of Orchidacese, and selected seeds, presented 

 by the Hon. East India Company, through Dr. Forbes Royle. 



The Library has continued to be enriched by the transmission, 

 by several of the learned Societies of Britain, of their Transac- 

 tions. Among these the Council have much pleasure in men- 

 tioning the first part of the volume containing the Memoirs 

 communicated to the Archaeological Institute at its meeting in 

 York, and the elaborate Map of Boman Yorkshire, by Charles 



* The value of this splendid acquisition to the Museum has been greatly en- 

 hanced by Mr. Read's subsequent presentation of his cabinet of British eggs. 



