TRANSACTIONS OF SECTIO;«r D. — DEPT. ZOOLOGY AND BOTANT. 661 



Should the Section, as did the Acnd^mie des Sciences in relation to the passage 

 cited, kindly condone such application to human contrivances of the current 

 genealogical or phylogenetic language applied to vital structures, your President 

 need hardly own his appreciation of^the vast superiority of every step in advance 

 ■which is manifested in existing as compared with extinct organisms. And thus, 

 pensible, as far as the human faculty may comprehend them, that organic adapta- 

 tions transcend the best of those conceived by the ingenuity of man to fulfil his 

 special needs, he would ask whether analogy does not legitimately lead to the 

 iuference, for organic phenomena, of an Adapting Cause operating in a correspond- 

 ing transcendent degree ? _ "~j*' 



In conclusion, I am moved to remark that a Museum giving space and light for 

 adequate display of the national treasures of Natural History may be expected to 

 exert such influence on the progress of Biology as to condone, if not call for, 

 a narrative of the circumstances attending its formation in the Records of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science. 



The following Reports vpere read : — 



1. Be;port of the Committee for the Investigation of the Natural History of 

 Socotra. — See Reports, p. 194. 



2. Hcport of the Committee for the Investigation of the Natural History of 

 Timor-laut. — See Reports, p. 197. 



3. Report on the Record of Zoological Literatxire. 



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2. 



The following Papers were read ; — 



1. Jurassic Birds and their Allies. By Professor 0. C. Maksh. 



The author ha-sdng been engaged for several years in investigating American 

 Mesozoic Birds, found it important to study the European forms. He had therefore 

 examined with some care the three known specimens of Ai'chisopten/.v, as well as 

 some allied extinct Reptiles, which promised to throw light upon Birds. During 

 this investigation he had observed several important characters in Ar-ckceoptert/.v 

 not pre\'iously determined, and he thought it appropriate to make them known here. 

 Among the more important of these characters were the following : — 



1. The presence of true teeth in position in the skull. These teeth appear to be 

 in the premaxillary, and in form closely resemble the teeth of Hesperornis. No 

 teeth are known from the lower jaw, but they were probably present. 



2. The vertebr£e are biconcave. The presacral vertebrae are all, or nearly all, 

 biconcave, resembling in form those of Ichthyornis. There are about twenty-one 

 presacral vertebrje, and the number of caudals is nearly or quite the same. The 

 sacral vertebrte are not more than five, and probably less. 



3. There is a broad, well-ossified sternum. The scapular arch, as a whole, 



6tage arranges dans le meme maniere, on dirait aussi que leur ^^Zrtw est la meme. 

 Mais si leur ordre etait different, si, de plain-pied dans une des maisons, ces pitees 

 etaient plac6es dans I'autre aux etages successifs, on dirait qu'avec une composition 

 semblable ces maisons sont construites sur des plans diffi6rens,' p. 2-15. 



