300 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



entific world, as an acurate and learned systematic zoologist and 

 anatomist, for more than half a century. His numerous reports 

 on various branches of natural history, contained in the Comptes 

 Rendus, show the variety and extent of his studies ; but, as an 

 original writer, he is best known to the world by his valuable 

 works on Erpetology ; for there is scarcely a group of the Reptilia 

 and Amphibia that has not been illustrated by his pen. His most 

 important work is the ' General History of Reptilia,' the last volume 

 of which (the Sth) is now in the press. During the greater part of 

 its progress it was the joint production of himself and my lamented 

 friend Bibron, who was cut off in the prime of life and in the midst 

 of a most promising scientific career, before the work was com- 

 pleted. After a period of twenty years, during which time it has 

 been in progress, it has at last been brought to a conclusion, and 

 must be acknowledged as one of the most complete systematic works 

 that has ever appeared, and worthy to take its place by the side 

 of the ' History of Crustacea' by our distinguished foreign member 

 Dr. Milne-Edwards, which forms one of the same important series 

 of Monographs. It will, I am sure, be a very agreeable and 

 cheering event, at his advanced age, to receive the compliment 

 which has been paid him by the Linnean Society. 



Van Beneden, the learned Professor of Louvain, is well known as 

 one of the most original and successful physiological observers of 

 the present day. At a time like the present, when the subjects of 

 Embryology and early development, and the changes which take 

 place during the first periods of life, have occupied the attention of 

 physiologists to an unprecedented extent, the works of Van Beneden 

 have been appreciated as amongst the most important contributions 

 to this branch of science. His papers have usually been published 

 in the Transactions of the Brussels Academy of Sciences, and have 

 treated principally of the anatomy and physiology of Mollusca, of 

 Entozoa, and of Polypes. In the first of these classes his researches 

 into the anatomy of Dreissena led him to the knowledge of the true 

 relations of this curious genus and its proper place amongst the 

 Mytilidce. In the Gasteropoda his dissection of Helix Algira 

 enabled him to clear up some curious points in the anatomy of the 

 pulmoniferous group of this class, and led him to assign a distinct 

 subgeneric character to this species ; and in the same group, the 

 early evolution of the nervous system was more fully exhibited than 

 had before been done, in a paper on the anatomy of the common 

 Limax griseus. The Pteropoda also early engaged his attention, 

 and his examination of Pneumodermon enabled him to ascertain that 



