300 Royal Society : — 



delineation, minute and elaborate execution, and taste in the 

 general arrangement of the figures, nothing within the range of 

 zoographical illustration has ever surpassed them. The Plates will 

 be lithographed by Mr. Lear, coloured (so as to form the most perfect 

 facsimiles of the drawings) by Mr. Bayfield. The joint talent of 

 these excellent artists, exhibited in the illustrations of the Psittacidae 

 of the former gentleman, renders it unnecessary to say that the ability 

 of the painter will be ably seconded by that of the lithographer and 

 colourist.' Which I entirely indorse. 



" The unsold stock and unpublished plates were purchased at Mr. 

 Highley's sale by Mr. Sotheran, and the work has been in abeyance 

 for many years. 



"Mr. Bell has declined to furnish the text for the unpublished plates. 

 In this difScidty Mr. Sotheran applied to me ; and feeling that it 

 was much to be regretted that such beautiful and accurate plates 

 should be lost to science, and considering that such minutely accu- 

 rate and detailed figures would not require to be accompanied 

 by a description, I agreed to add a few lines of text to each Plate, 

 containing first the original name that Mr. Bell placed upon them, 

 then the name used in the Museum Catalogue of Tortoises, so as to 

 bring the nomenclature to the level of our present knowledge of 

 these animals, at the same time referring to a work in which the 

 synonymy of the species is to be found. I have also added a few 

 lines on the habits and manners of the species from works of authors 

 who have had the opportunity of observing them in their native 

 country. 



" Many of the specimens figured and the rest of Mr. Bell's collection 

 of reptiles are now to be found in the Anatomical and Zoological 

 Museum at Cambridge." 



The work contains 60 plates and represents 36 species ; so that of 

 many species there is a plate of the upper and underside, and of 

 several, varieties of the same species. They are all from living 

 specimens except Emyda cetjlonensis, which is from a specimen pre- 

 served in spirit. 



It is one of the most beautiful and accurate works that has appeared 

 on Tortoises, and, one might almost say, on any known reptiles. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



EOYAL SOCIETY. 



June 20, 1872. — Sir James Paget, Bart., D.C.L., Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



" On the Echinidea of the ' Porcupine ' Deep-sea Dredging-Ex- 

 peditions." By Prof. Wyville Thomson, LL.D., D.Sc, F.R.S. 



The deep-sea dredging-cruises of H.M. Ships 'Lightning' and 

 'Porcupine' during the summers of 1868, 1869, and 1870 in the 

 North Atlantic, were comprehended within a belt 1500 miles in 

 length by from 100 to 1.50 miles in width, extending from the Faeroe 



