772 report— 1884. 



having a distinct hind nail. Many other points indicate that it is in the Pacific 

 that the majority of the existing groups, and even species of Gulls and Terns, have 

 originated. 



8. Result of the Investigations of Insular Floras. By W. B. Helmslet. 



9. Some Observations on the direct descendants of Bos Primigenius in 

 Great Britain. By Gr. P. Hughes. 



The author gave a brief sketch of the grounds we have, through numerous- 

 remains of Bcs Urus or Primigenius, and from the account in lloman history of 

 the domestic and wild ox of 2,000 years ago, for supposing that the three typical 

 breeds we have remaining in the parks of Chartley, Cadzow, and Chillingham are 

 well nigh direct descendants of that aboriginal race. 



He described the difference between the Bos Primigenius and the Bos Lon- 

 gifrons, the ancestors of our British cattle. 



He pointed out some mistakes in the report sent to the late Mr. Storer of the- 

 Cadzow herd of cattle, stating that they were a polled herd of cows. The author 

 found the entire herd possessed of well-set on horns of 18 inches long ; he also found 

 their colour to be white, with a few black ticks, and not cream-coloured. He 

 visited the Chillingham herd, and gave particulars as to an attempt at crossing 

 being tried with a Durham bull. He considers the Chillingham herd the finest 

 type of the Primijenius at this day extant. 



10. On Natural Co-ordination, as evinced in Organic Evolution. 

 Brj Dr. W. Fraser. 



Nature affords us no decisive evidence of either creative or annihilative inter- 

 ference, all its manifestations seeming to result solely from the spontaneous- 

 operation of pre-inherent energies. But while the universe as a whole appears 

 thus like an independent and uninterrupted system, with sequences limited and 

 determined only by intrinsic capacities and tendencies, all its subordinate indi- 

 vidual parts, consisting of mere potentialities, dependent for the actual evolution of 

 their energies on supplementary aids, and aiso liable to adventitious disturbances, 

 have their activities limited and determined by extrinsic as well as intrinsic 

 conditions. 



Inorganic units, comprising both atoms and molecules, are universally intrans- 

 mutable and agenetic in constitution and endowments, being utterly devoid of 

 either progressive or productive individual capacities, for, though compound 

 chemical substances may be resolvable into more elementary ones, this constitutes 

 neither production nor progress, as the physical processes of alternate composition 

 and decomposition are indefinitely reversible without the slightest appreciable 

 modification of intimate constitution in any of the factors engaged. 



In contrast to the intransmutable and agenetic character of inorganic units, all 

 organic forms, embracing germs, organisms, and structural elements, are distin- 

 guished by the possession of transmutable dispositions and genetic potentialities ; 

 no organisation ever remaining absolutely alike during any consecutive periods of 

 developmental activity, and every integral portion, when properly supplemented 

 and protected, seeming competent to directly or indirectly engender and perpetuate 

 interminable successions of more or less similarly endowed products. 



As organic units, in common with all other subordinate material systems^ 

 include but mere potentialities, the absence or incongruity of auxiliaries often as 

 effectually restrains their evolutional tendencies as would the direct operation of 

 positively injurious agencies. 



All development is practically subjected to extraneous restraints, no organisa- 

 tion ever realising the greatest results which its inherent potentialities would admit. 

 The restraints to collective development are clearly seen in the limited exparu- 



