Zoological Society. 55 



are steadily adding to the stock of knowledge on this subject, and 

 their maps, sections, and explanations are diffusing correct informa- 

 tion. They can work but slowly, however ; and much can be done 

 by others : and of this the valuable and lucid memoir by Mr. Marcus 

 Scott, recently published in the Geological Society's Journal, on the 

 unconformability of the Upper and the Lower Coal-measures of 

 Coalbrook Dale, is a striking example. 



The study of coal and the coal-measures has been greatly ad- 

 vanced by Mr. Hull's treatise ; for the subject is therein carefully 

 and clearly presented in its many different aspects, with much light 

 derived from his own and others' experience ; and his map and sec- 

 tions bring to the eye much valuable practical and theoretical in- 

 formation, in which the results of Mr. Hull's own labours have a 

 conspicuous and most worthy standing*. Doubtless further editions 

 of the work before us will be called for. The increasing interest 

 shown by the public in geology, and the direct interest we all feel 

 in the coal-supply, will induce the author to still further improve his 

 work with amendments of condensed information. Even now, few 

 books are more worthy to bear the motto " scientia et utilitas." 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



May 27, 1862.— Prof. Huxley, F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 



On a New Species of Chlamydera, or Bower-Bird. 

 By John Gould, Esq., F.R.S., etc. 



I am indebted to the researches of F. T. Gregory, Esq., the West 

 Australian explorer, for a knowledge of a new species of this group 

 of birds, which are rendered remarkable by their habit of construct- 

 ing bowers or playing-places. It was collected by Mr. Gregory in 

 North-western Australia, and is doubtless the species which con- 

 structs the bowers described by Captain (now Sir George) Grey in the 

 first volume of his ' Travels,' pp. 196 and 245, where he states that, 

 on gaining the summit of one of the sandstone ranges forming the 

 watershed of the streams flowing into the Glenelg and Prince Re- 

 gent's Rivers, "we fell in with a very remarkable nest, or what 

 appeared to me to be such. We had previously seen several of them, 

 and they had always afforded us food for conjecture as to the agent 

 and purpose of such singular structures." This " very curious sort 

 of nest, which was frequently found by myself and other individuals 

 of the party, not only along the sea-shore, but in some instances at 

 a distance of six or seven miles from it, I once conceived must have 

 belonged to a Kangaroo-rat, until Mr. Gould informed me that it is 



* Mr. Hull's elaboration of the probable limits of the Carboniferous 

 deposits in England, and of the distribution of the sandstones, clays, and 

 limestones of that formation, is published, with a map, in the ' Journal of 

 the Geological Society,' No. 70, May 1862. 



