PROCEEDINGS OF SCIEN'TIFIC SOCIETIES. 265 
Two botanical papers of interest were likewise laid before the meeting :— 
“On the Geographical Distribution of the Meliacea,” by M. Cassimir De 
Candolle; and a “Note on the Disarticulation of Branches,” by Mr. R. 
Irwin Lynch. 
May 8, 1877.—Prof. Atiman, F'.B.8., President, in the chair. 
Mr. James Paton, of the Kelvin Grove Museum, Glasgow, was elected 
a Fellow. 
The demise during last year of three veteran Biologists, Von Baer, 
Brongniart, and Ehrenberg, having caused vacancies in the list of Foreign 
Members, the following gentlemen, at this meeting, were duly elected 
among the honorary fifty holding membership :— 
M. Pierre Du Charte, of Paris, a botanist of great repute, distinguished 
alike for his valuable memoirs on physiological and teratological as well as 
other branches of Botany. 
Prof. Carl Gegenbaur, of Heidelberg (formerly of Jena), whose labours 
and philosophical investigations into the structure and development of both 
vertebrate and invertebrate animals mark him as one of the greatest com- 
parative anatomists of the day. His researches on the Heteropoda have 
laid the foundation of our knowledge of this group. His monograph ‘ On 
the Shoulder Girdle of Vertebrates’ is now a classic, and the ‘ Grundziige 
der Vergleichende Anatomie’ has no equal as a text-book, considering the 
original views therein, and as an exponent of the present stand-point of a 
philosophical Zoology. 
Prof. Rudolph Leuchart, of Leipzig, chiefly distinguished for his studies 
on the morphology and physiology of the lower groups of animals. His 
researches on the Siphonophora, the Ctenophora, the parasitic and other 
worms have largely contributed to a knowledge of these forms. He was 
the first to show the necessity for the dismemberment of Cuvier’s group of 
the Radiata, which resulted in the establishment of the group Cwlenterata. 
In the ‘ Archiv fur Naturgeschichte’ his valuable annual retrospects of the 
progress of knowledge in researches among the lower Invertebrates have 
been of immense assistance to zoological co-workers. 
The first paper read and discussed was ‘‘On the Sacral Flexus and 
Sacral Vertebre of Lizards,” by Prof. Mivart and Prof. R. Clarke. It has 
of late been recognized that in any attempt to answer the question, which 
vertebra of any lower animal answers to the first sacral vertebra of man, the 
nervous distribution quite as much as the bone relations require ample 
consideration. The authors discuss the researches of Professors Gegenbaur 
and Hofmann, and then proceed to describe their own dissections of the 
parts in question in the Chameleon, the Green Lizard, the Common 
Teguexin, the Iguana, the Monitor, and others. Afterwards they institute 
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