1869.] Zoology. 159 



Bristol Natural isfs Society.— Tim excellent and flonrishiug 

 Society publishes its proceedings from time to time, and at the end 

 of the year they form a neat little volume, which we now have 

 before us. Mr. Lant Carpenter has for some time edited the reports 

 of the Society, but we regret to see he has now been obhged to 

 retire on account of the occupation of his time. In glancing 

 through the pages of the reports, we came upon a paper by Mr. 

 Groom-Napier on the Dodo, in which it is stated that there is 

 an original picture of that obese bird in the Ashmolean Museum. 

 This is we believe an error. In the University Museum there is 

 the celebrated head, and recently a skeleton has been set up by the 

 talented cm'ator of the anatomical collection — Mr. Charles Robertson 

 — from bones lately obtained in the Mauritius. It is rather 

 amusing to read of Mr. Groom-Napier and some of his fellow- 

 naturahsti? maintaining that the Dodo cannot be rightly associated 

 with the pigeons. A careful study of its osteology would or ought 

 to bring them round to the opinion of the chief zoologists of the 

 day. 



TJie Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates, Vol. III.* — Pro- 

 fessor Owen has now completed his great work, but it reaches us 

 too late to do it justice in the present number. 



The Royal Medals of the Royal Society. — One of these medals 

 has this year been awarded to Alfred E. Wallace, the distinguished 

 traveller and philosophical zoologist, who is not unknown to the 

 readers of this Journal, t It was particularly in view of his researches 

 on the distribution of animals which led him to frame the theory 

 of the origin of species by modification and descent, placed before 

 the world simultaneously with Mr. Darwin's, that Mr. AVallace has 

 received this high but well-earned recognition of his merits. The 

 other Eoyal Medal was given to Dr. ISalmon, of Trinity College, 

 Dublin. 



*■ Longmans. 



t See liis papers on " Ice-mfirks in North Wales," " Creation by Law," and 

 • On the Migrations of tlie Polynesians," all puljlished in vol. vi. of the Journa]. 



