180 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



The publication of No. 2 of the Proceedings for 1869 was an- 

 nounced. 



Oct. 12th. 

 The President Dr. Hayes, in the Chair. 



Twenty-eight members present. 



The following paper was presented for publication: "On the Law 

 of Development in the flowers of Ambrosia artemisitefolia." By 

 Thomas Meehan. 



The death of Mr, Frederick Klett was announced. 



Oct. \mh. 



Dr. Bridges in the Chair. 

 Fifteen members present. 



Oct. 26th. 

 The President, Dr. Hayes, in the Chair. 



Twenty-six members present. 



The monthly report of the Biological and Microscopical Section 

 was presented. 



On favorable report of the Committees, the following papers were 

 ordered to be published : 



On variation in the Genus iEGIOTHUS • 

 BY ELLIOTT CODES, A.M., PH.D. 



Study of this genus will show a series of facts apparently of some general 

 application, on the question of the mutual relations, if not actually of the ori- 

 gin, of the various forms, usually held to be species, that compose associations 

 of corresponding grade. It is not to be supposed that this genus has labored 

 under any peculiar or isolated conditions, or been subject to any special laws 

 of development that have resulted in the state of things that is found to obtain. 

 Whatever these conditions and laws may have been, they are presumably — in 

 fact, almost certainly — equally operative upon more or less allied groups. 

 Though it seemed to the writer, at one time, that there was something peculiar 

 in the kind of variation to which Red-polls are subject, later investigations 

 render it probable that such is not the case. Analysis, therefore, of the phe- 

 nomena of this one group, carried into details, may be the means of deducing 

 some generalizations not wanting in import. 



It is not proposed to consider how the genus j'Egiolhus became what it is, — 

 that is, by what means it secured individual existence as an entit3^ distinct 

 from all surrounds, differentiated by certain characters from the most nearly 

 and most remotely allied types ; that is a question of the origin of genera, f 

 foreign to the present subject. We are to take the genus as it now is, and 

 study characters of the grade next below generic, in the hope of tracing some 

 of the laws that have been etfective in sorting out, among the birds of the 

 group, the precise features they are found to possess. 



*See these Proceedings, Nov. 1801, p. 373, ot seq.; and Feb. 1862, p. 40. 

 tSee Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., Oct., 1868. 



[Oct. 



