302 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



tion of Corals, on the structure and classification of Zoophytes, and 

 particularly an elaborate and admirable work on the classification 

 and geographical distribution of the Crustacea ; these and many 

 other subjects in natural history have been ably treated by this 

 gentleman, and, together with his numerous works on mineralogy 

 and on descriptive and physical geology, exhibit the results of great 

 labour and talent. 



Dr. Miguel*, one of the distinguished botanists recently elected on 

 the foreign list, has been for some years the Professor of Botany 

 and Director of the Botanic Garden at Amsterdam ; and both there, 

 and previously at Ley den, has been very active in the cultivation of 

 systematic botany. He has worked out with great labour and care 

 some very difficult tribes, especially the Piperita, of which he 

 published a general Monograph in 1843, besides several preparatory 

 and subsequent supplementary papers in German and English jour- 

 nals. He has also illustrated the Figs in a considerable number of 

 detached papers, particularly a synopsis of them in Hooker's Jour- 

 nal. The Floras of Surinam and of the Dutch East Indian posses- 

 sions have also been illustrated by him. Amongst his papers on 

 these subjects may be mentioned " Commentarii Phytographici," 

 " Stirpes Surinamenses," and " Analecta Botanica Indica." He 

 also wrote the Urticea and Piperitece for Martius's ' Flora Brasiliensis,' 

 and papers in various journals, German, French, Dutch, and English. 



Dr. Carl Anton Meyer was first known as a botanical traveller in 

 the Russian dominions, either alone or in company with Ledebour or 

 Bunge, and his earliest works were systematic descriptions, or 

 enumerations of the plants collected, or floras of the localities in- 

 vestigated. These were chiefly an enumeration of the Caucasio- 

 Caspian plants, from the eastern extremity of the chain of the Cau- 

 casus and the provinces bordering on the Caspian Sea. A great 

 part of Ledebour's ' Flora Altaica ' was also from his pen, and a 

 supplementary enumeration of plants from the same parts. He 

 afterwards became attached for many years to the Imperial Aca- 

 demy of Sciences of St. Petersburgh, and ultimately succeeded 

 Dr. Fischer as Director of the Imperial Botanic Garden. He has 

 during this period published several monographies in the Petersburgh 

 Transactions, on Ephedra, on Thymelece, on Cerium, &c. I may be 

 permitted here to notice, as a very propitious and agreeable circum- 

 stance, that at a time when the political world is surcharged with 



* For the sketches of the labours of the three Botanical Foreign Mem- 

 bers, the President is indebted to Mr. Bentham and the Rev. M. J. 



Berkeley. 



