178 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



March 28th, iSand meeting. Mi. Sclater stated that 

 Professor Huxley, in lecturing at the Royal College of 

 Surgeons on the osteology of reptiles and birds, had pointed 

 out some very remarkable characters in the cranium of the 

 latter, which apparently had not hitherto been noticed, and 

 showed that if these were taken, as he proposed should be 

 done, for a basis of classification, the whole class must have 

 a very different arrangement from that adopted in the 

 Cuvierian system. 



May soth, i84th meeting. Mr. Wheatstone exhibited a 

 specimen of avanturine chrome brought from Paris by 

 M. Pelouse. 



Mr. Busk said that, while examining the animal remains 

 from the Brixham cavern, a large part of which belong to 

 the bear, he had ascertained the bulk of them to represent 

 Ursus priscus, which he had found by cranial and dental 

 characters to be indistinguishable from Ursus ferox. 1 The 

 bones of the true Ursus spelaeus were so scanty, that even 

 its occurrence was doubtful, but some of Ursus arctos seemed 

 to be present. 



Dr. Carpenter described some important improvements 

 recently made by M. Nachet in a binocular dissecting micro- 

 scope. 2 



June 30th, i85th meeting. Dr. Carpenter described the 

 results of examination under the microscope of thin slices 

 from Spirifer cuspidatus and from types which have been 

 confused with it. A true specimen of the first has an 

 imperf orate shell, but* a shell occurs externally indistinguish- 

 able from it, which is perforate, and has such differences 

 in its internal structure that it cannot be placed in the same 

 genus. Of these Dr. Carpenter gave a description, saying that 

 for the latter Professor Winchell had constituted the genus 

 Syringothyris. This external isomorphism, associated with 

 such differences of internal structure, was a remarkable thing. 



1 They are considered to be identical by Prof. S. H. Reynolds. See 

 Pleistocene Mammalia, vol. ii. part 2, Palaeontographical Society, vol. Ix. 

 (1906). So the Grizzly Bear was much more abundant than the Browa 

 Bear, and the Cave Bear the rarest. 



a An addition to this Minute is placed at the end of those for Oct. 3ist 



