286 Royal Society :-—On the Nature of the 
we may recognize the agreements and differences of the various 
forms; he then points out the general purposes of classification and 
the principles of nomenclature, the principles of comparative anatomy 
and their application to the study of extinct animals, and the 
general facts of geographical distribution. His third chapter is 
devoted to a brief sketch of the classification of animals, the fourth 
to their development and reproduction, and the fifth to certain 
general observations on the food and instincts of certain species, 
mimicry, &c. In this chapter also the author discusses the question 
of the nature and possible origin of species. We most heartily 
recommend this little volume as a first book of zoology. 
Mr. Wilson’s work, which carries the teaching much further, and 
is really a student’s manual, is also an excellent work of its kind. 
Mr. Wilson covers pretty nearly the same ground as Prof. Newton, 
although of course he enters into much more detail; and we have to 
compliment both authors on the same characteristic of their work— 
namely, the total freedom from prejudice with which they have dis- 
cussed those unsettled questions which at present divide naturalists, 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
February 4, 1875.—Joseph Dalton Hooker, C.B., President, in the 
Chair. 
« Remarks on Professor Wrvitte THomson’s Preliminary Notes on 
the Nature of the Sea-bottom procured by the Soundings of H.M.S. 
‘Challenger.’” By Wrttram B. Carrenter, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S, 
The extreme interest of two of the questions started and partly 
discussed in Professor Wyville Thomson’s communication will be 
deemed, I trust, a sufficient reason for my offering such contribu- 
tions as my own experience furnishes tow ards their solution. 
The first of these questions is, whether the Globigerine, by the 
accumulation of whose shells the Globigerina-ooze is being formed 
on the deep-sea bottom, live and multiply on that bottom, or pass 
their whole lives in the superjacent water (especially in its upper 
stratum), only subsiding to the bottom when dead. 
Having previously held the former opinion, Prof. Wyville 
Thomson states that he has now been led to adopt the latter, by 
the results of Mr. Murray’s explorations of the surface and sub- 
surface waters with the tow-net—which results concur with the 
previous observations of Miiller, Hickel, Major Owen, and 
others, in showing that Globigerine, in common with many other 
Foraminifera, have a pelagic habitat; while the close relation 
which they further indicate between ‘the surface-fauna of any 
particular locality and the materials of the organic deposit at 
the bottom, appears to Prof. Wyville Thomson to warrant the 
conclusion that the latter is altogether derived from the former. 
