62 PKOCEEDINGS OP THE 



]\[r. r. DuCaiie Godraan then moved : — " That the thanks of 

 the Society be given to the President for his excellent Address, 

 and that he be requested to allow it to be printed and circulated 

 amoug the Pellows ; '"' and this, having been seconded by 

 Mr. How ard Saunders, was carried unanimously. 



The Gold Medal of the Society was then formally presented to 

 Pi'of. Alfred Newton, M.A., F.R.S., in recognition of his im- 

 portant services to Zoological Science, by the President in the 

 following terms : — 



" The Society's Gold Medal has been awarded by the Council to 

 Alfred Newton, Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy 

 at the University of Cambridge, in recognition of his eminent 

 services to Zoology, 



" In stating the grounds on which the Council has made this 

 selection, I need ouly refer to some of the Medallist's principal 

 contributions to our knowledge. Prom an early period of his 

 life he concentrated the best of his energies to observation and 

 research in the field of Ornithology ; he spared no time, no pains 

 to secure to his investigations the highest possible degree of 

 perfection and reliability. The life-history of British Birds 

 naturally was the first subject of his study, and, after years of 

 patient enquiry, two volumes of the latest edition of Yarrell's 

 work became the depository of a portion of the results of his 

 labours. His papers on the Great Auk and the Sand-grouse mark 

 an epoch in our knowledge of the history of those birds. 



" Taking up the unfinished work of his early friend, Wolley, 

 he continued the investigations of this able ornithologist, and 

 during his visits to Scandinavia, the Paroe Islands, Iceland, and 

 Spitsbergen, he collected many important facts, in addition to, or 

 correction of, our previous knowledge of the Arctic Avifauna. 



" The presence in Mauritius of his brother. Sir Edward 

 (1859-77), gave a fresh impetus to the investigation of the Fauna 

 of the Mascarene and Seycbelle Islands. The results of the ex- 

 plorations, which were partly conducted or initiated by Sir Edward 

 himself, partly assisted by him, surpassed our most sanguine 

 expectations. I need not say that our Medallist had his share 

 in these achievements, and the, perhaps, most important, the 

 elucidation of the history and osteology of the Solitaire, was their 

 joint work. 



" But our Medallist's work was not confined to faunistic and 

 monographic research : it ranged over a much wider field, and 

 comprised those numei'ous and excellent articles in the ' Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica,' which he afterwards collected and issued, with 

 many additions, as ' A Dietionarj^ of Birds.' Supplementing his 

 own contributions by those of the palaeontologist and morphologist, 

 he succeeded in producing a compendium of Ornithology with a 

 completeness of information for which he has earned the lasting 

 gratitude of all engaged in zoological studies. The Introduction 



I 



