of the Mauritius. 13J 



extracts from its minutes, expressing :i resolution of the S. A. 

 Institution, that all Members of the Natural History Society of 

 Mauritius, who should visit the Cape of Good Hope, should be 

 received as Corresponding Members of the Institution : and 

 requesting the privilege of translating and publishing in the 

 South African Quarterly Journal, the Annual Report of their 

 Proceedings, of which the Natural History Society had sent a 

 copy. 



The Society resolved to accede to the request of the S. A. 

 Institution, and to announce to it, that its Members should 

 enjoy at the Mauritius, the same privileges as then conferred 

 by the Institution at the Cape of Good Hope, and that copies 

 of the Monthly Notices of the Proceedings of the Society 

 should be transmitted to the Institution, with a request that a 

 similar arrangement might be made by it, in favour of the 

 Natural History Society. 



Dr. Lyall presented to the Society, specimens of the plants 

 which he had gathered in Madagascar, which form the com- 

 mencement of the Herbarium which the Society proposes to 

 collect. The specimens are in a state of high preservation, 

 and amount to 598, and are marked in a catalogne presented 

 along with them; 



Mr. Barry, on his reception as a member, delivered a dis- 

 course, in which he particularly remarked, that the Society, by 

 the results of the past year of its existence, had already at- 

 tracted the notice of many philosophers of other countries; 

 Associations of celebrity are already in correspondence with it; 

 and that it has received a most flattering testimony, in being 

 found worthy of commendation by the most celebrated natu- 

 ralist of the age, Baron G. Cuvier, who had already favoured it 

 by the presentation of several of his works. Mr. Barry then 

 proceeded to present some general views on the subject of 

 terrestrial refraction, and on singular results which have been 

 for sometime remarked, especially in regard to the kind of 

 knowledge termed Nauscopia. In regard to this subject, some 

 explanations were given by the President and by Dr. Lyall. 



Mr. L. Bouton presented a specimen of the Eaglewood or 

 Aloewood (Aloexylon agallochum of Loureiro), and road a 

 historical and descriptive notice of it. 



Mr. Faraguet offered somo verbal elucidations in regard to 

 several objects which he had procured during his voyage in 

 the Astrolabe, among others, a root of Kava. 



Mr. J. Desjardins read notices of some fishes from the 

 North-west coast of Sumatra, and also of two species belong- 

 ing to the Geneva Labrua and Coryphoena. 



