Royal Society. 159 
of it are found in the Upper Silurian. The Silurian, Huronian, and 
Laurentian rocks are also found in Acadia, and have been elucidated 
by Dr. Honeyman, Mr. Hartt, and others. The economic geology of 
the region is kept well to the fore, also its physical geography and 
agricultural characteristics, as dependent on its geological structure. 
Many subjects of great interest in general geology are illustrated or 
described in this volume, especially the nature of coal, the flora of 
the coal, preservation of erect trees, origin of gypsum, life in seas, 
estuaries, &c., trails, rain-marks, and footprints, albertite, gold, 
primeval man, &c. Upwards of 270 woodcuts, mostly excellent in 
character, a good geological map, and, lastly, several lists of contents, 
special subjects, and illustrations, a valuable appendix, and useful 
index complete this satisfactory, well-written, and well-printed 
work on the geology and geological resources of Acadia. These 
large and varied provinces possess enthusiastic enlightened geolo- 
gists, and furnish fields as rich for their research as the unprece- 
dented supply of gold which Nova Scotia offers to the miner. It must 
be a mutual satisfaction to our Acadian brethren and ourselves to 
have at command this handsome and elaborate réswmé of all that is 
known of the geology of that important region. 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
June 1], 1868.—Lieut.-General Sabine, President, in the Chair. 
“On the Osteology of the Solitaire or Didine Bird of the Island of 
Rodriguez, Pezophaps solitaria (Gmel.).”’ By ALrrep Newron, 
M.A., Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge, and Epwarp Newron, M.A., Auditor-General 
of Mauritius. 
The Solitaire of Rodriguez was first satisfactorily shown to be 
distinct from the Dodo of Mauritius (Didus ineptus) by Strickland 
in 1844, from a renewed examination of the evidence respecting it, 
consisting of the account given by Leguat in 1708, and of the re- 
mains sent to France and Great Britain. Strickland, in 1848, 
further proved it to be generically distinct from the Dodo. The 
remains existing in Kurope in 1852 were eighteen bones, of which five 
were at Paris, six at Glasgow, five in the possession of the Zoological 
Society (since transferred to the British Museum), and two in that of 
Strickland, who, at the date last mentioned, described them as be- 
longing to two species, the second of which he named Pezophaps 
minor, from the great difference observable in the size of the 
specimens. In 1864 one of the authors visited Rodriguez, and there 
found in a cave two more bones, while a third was picked up by a 
gentleman with him. All these bones have been described, and most 
of them figured, in the publications of the Zoological Society, and in 
the large work of Strickland and Dr. Melville *. 
* The Dodo and its Kindred. London: 1848, 4to. 
