61 



period of more than fifty years, the publication of which 

 in our ' Transactions ' has done so much to advance the 

 knowledge of comparative anatomy and to give an illus- 

 trious place to their author in the annals of science. 



Among other well-known names of those mentioned as 

 having taken part in the business of the Committee during 

 the first year of its existence, either by their actual presence 

 or by forwarding communications, are N. A. Vigors, W. 

 Yarrell, J. E. Gray, J. Gould, E. T. Bennett, Andrew Smith, 

 T. Bell,W. Martin, Joshua Brookes, W.Kirby,W. H. Sykes, 

 Marshall Hall, W. Ogilby, John Richardson, and B. H. 

 Hodgson, who, I am happy to see, is with us to-day. 



The Committee continued in existence for two years, 

 having met for the last time on December 11, 1832. The 

 success of its meetings was so great that it was thought 

 desirable to make an alteration in the Bye-laws, by which 

 the meetings of the Committee were replaced by the 

 "General Meetings of the Society for Scientific Business." 

 The first of these meetings took place on Tuesday, the 8th of 

 January, 1833, and they have continued to be held on two 

 Tuesdays in each month during the season to the present 

 time. As long as the Society retained its house in Bruton 

 Street, the meetings were held there. In 1843 the Society 

 took another house, No. 11 Hanover Square, which it 

 occupied for forty-one years ; but its needs having out- 

 grown the accommodation afforded there, it removed in 1884 

 to the far more spacious and commodious premises in No. 3 

 of the same square, which we at present occupy. These 

 meetings of the Society, which are open to all the Fellows 

 and to friends introduced by them, have exercised a con- 

 siderable influence upon the progress of zoological know- 

 ledge, not only by the reading and discussing of commu- 

 nications formally brought before them, but also by the 

 interchange of ideas at the informal social gatherings over 

 the coifee-table in the library afterwards, which have great 

 value as affording a common meeting-ground and bond of 

 union for all the working zoologists of the country, as well 

 as of manv visitors from foreisrn lands. 



The more important scientific communications to these 

 meetings have from the commencement been published 

 in the form of quarto ' Transactions ■* and octavo ' Pro- 

 ceedings,^ Avhich constitute a series of inestimable import- 

 ance both for the value of the material contained in them 

 and for the excellence of the illustrations of new or rare 



