276 Proceedings of the Royal Plmjsical Society. 



exposition of the present state of knowledge regarding the 

 growth and origin of coral-reefs, and of the manner in which 

 our faith in the Darwinian theory of these structures has 

 become gradually shaken and undermined by the progress of 

 subsequent research. 



Except that they include no contributions from the 

 chemical members, the 20 original papers well represent the 

 various branches of scientific work which it is the special 

 function of this Society to encourage and prosecute. Eleven 

 of these deal with subjects in recent zoology: of these five 

 are ornithological — those of Mr Swinburne on the Birds of 

 Sula Sgeir or North Barra and North Eona ; of Mr Dalgleish 

 on a Second Collection of Birds and Eggs from Central 

 Uruguay ; and two papers by Mr Harvie-Brown, and one on 

 the Occurrence of the Little Gull. 



It is only natural that Ornithology should be, as it always 

 has been, prominent in the matters brought before our meet- 

 ings, seeing the wide general interest which the subject 

 evokes, and the opportunities afforded by Scotland for 

 observations connected with this department. 



Two papers record researches in Invertebrate Anatomy, 

 one of these being the beautifully illustrated and carefully 

 worked-out paper of Professor Herdman on Sarcodictyon, 

 the other an interesting note by Mr Beddard on the Structure 

 of the Body- Wall of certain Earthworms. We must regret 

 that we have lost the advantage of Mr Beddard's presence 

 amongst us as a resident member, but at the same time we 

 must congratulate him on his well-deserved promotion to so 

 important a post as the Prosectorship to the Zoological 

 Society of London. 



Two papers relate to distributional marine zoology ; one 

 by Dr J. K. Henderson on Shells and Zoophytes from the 

 Firth of Forth not previously recorded in the Society's Pro- 

 ceedings — a very appropriate paper for our Society, being 

 supplementary to the valuable list already published in our 

 Proceedings by Messrs Leslie and Herdman. The second is 

 a Ptevised List of British Ophiuroidea by Mr Hoyle, of great 

 importance to those interested in the geographical distribu- 

 tion of our marine invertebrates. What a difference there is 



