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ber of the Society, who expressed some surprise that he had 

 not been present at its meetings since his return. For his 

 part his own surprise was great at hearing the remark. 

 He had supposed the Society understood that nothing but 

 imperative necessity would keep him away from their meet- 

 ings. He considered his duties to them to be paramount 

 to all others. Ill health must be his excuse for absence. 

 He congratulated the Society on its present prosperous con- 

 dition. It stood deservedly high at home and in Europe 

 also, so far as it was known. During his recent tour he 

 had been principally interested in scientific objects, and had 

 visited many collections, chiefly with a view to satisfy him- 

 self on certain geological questions. 



The President then proceeded to give brief notices of the 

 Zoological Collections, and the Royal Institution in Liver- 

 pool, the British Museum, the Collection of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons, the Institution of Economical Geology, 

 the Collection of the East India Company, the private Col- 

 lection of Dr. Mantell, the Jardin des Plantes, the Eppels- 

 heim Fossils at Darmstadt, and the beautiful Collection 

 made by Professor Phillips. He spoke of specimens which 

 had interested him in these Collections, particularly the 

 bones of the Mylodon, at York, now under the care of Mr. 

 Charlesworth, the restored skeleton of the Dinornis, and a 

 dissection of the Nautilus Pompilius, belonging to the 

 Royal College of Surgeons. 



On his first visit to the Garden of Plants or National 

 Museum at Paris, he found the scientific M. Laurillard in 

 the midst of a collection of fossils just received from the 

 Sub-Pyrenees Mountains. Among these were very noble 

 specimens of Mastodon longirostris or arvernensis. The first 

 aspect of these interesting pieces led him to believe that 

 the opinion he formerly entertained of the identity of M, 

 longirostris and M. angustidens was not well founded, and 

 he was inclined to consider them as varieties or different 

 species of the narrow-toothed group. 



