3SS Liiuuean and Astronomical Societies. 



I.IXNJ;.VN SOCIETY. 



The first aiul second meetings foi" the season were held No- 

 vember 5th and 19th: both evenings liave been occupied in 

 reading part of Remarks on the Identity of certain General 

 Laws which have been lately observed to regulate the Natural 

 Distribution of Insects and Fungi ; by W, S. MacLeay, Esq. 

 The admirable and profoimd work, Horci' Entomological, not 

 long since published by this gentleman, contains views of the 

 natural series of animated beings, which, though founded on a 

 close attention to their entire structure, may have appeared ex- 

 traordinarv as well as novel: and it is to a very remarkable con- 

 firmation of these views that the present interesting paper re- 

 lates ; — as it appears, from the part which has been read, that 

 INI. Fries, in his Sijstema Mj/cologicum published last year, ob- 

 serves laws of the .same kind to obtahi in the natural arrangement 

 of Fungi, which Mr. MacLeay had pointed out as existing in 

 the animal kingdom, and as probably extending to all orga- 

 nized beings. — The skins of several I'are birds from the East 

 Indies were presented from Major General Hardwicke. 



ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



Nov. 8. — This Society resumed its meetings this evening. 

 Tlie papers read were: 1°. A letter from the Rev. L. Evans 

 relative to the mode of determining the intervals of the wires 

 of a transit instrument. 2°. A paper from M. Littrow on 

 the method of correcting the principal errors of the transit 

 instrument. M. Littrow's method differs very little, in its re- 

 sults, from the mode proposed by Delambre, Bessel and others: 

 but his investigation of the principles, on which the method 

 is founded, is at once clear and convincing, and shows the 

 perspicuity and accuracy of this distinguished astronomer. 

 A nmnber of very valuable works (principally foreign) were 

 presented to the Society. 



LXXXI. Intelligence and Miscclla7iemis Articles. 



ASTRONOMICAL INFORMATION. 



1. IMr. ScHLMAcrER of Copenhagen, to whom the public is 

 indebted for an annual volume of astronomical tables for the 

 use of an observatory, has connnenced another work which 

 will also be highly useful to the practical astronomer. It is 

 tMititled, Sammlung von Hiilfstqfeln, or " A collection of auxi- 

 liary tables." It is printed in octavo, uniformly with his 

 AUronomische Hiilfstafeln ,• and die first Number (to which is 

 annexed an English preface,) has just made its appearance* 

 This number contains Tables for converting sidereal time into 

 .: mean 



