ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. xlin 
dance of Cephalopods before and after the accumulation of the great 
oolite, he asks, if the distribution of families at this period was gene- 
ral or local, in the latter case dependent on conditions obtaining only 
within certain limited areas, so that, these ceasing, changes in the 
kind of animal life of the locality were effected also. After noticing 
the mineral character of the great oolite of Minchinhampton, he con- 
cludes that a littoral deposit, such as he considers this to have been, 
will account for the paucity of Cephalopods and the absence of spe- 
cies found over large areas where deeper and more tranquil water 
prevailed. 
Detailing the mineral and zoological characters of the various beds 
observable in a large quarry on Minchinhampton Common, Mr. Ly- 
cett mentions a soft shelly sandstone, six feet thick, resting on an- 
other shelly sandstone abounding in carbonate of lime, both of which 
exhibit numerous holes made by lithodomous molluses, some of the 
holes still containing their shells. This shows pauses in the accu- 
mulations sufficient for the consolidation of beds, thus enabling these 
molluscs to bore fitting habitations for themselves. It is another 
instance, in a higher part of the oolitic series, of similar pauses, con- 
solidation of beds, and boring by lithodomous molluscs, which we 
have elsewhere pointed out as observable in the inferior oolite at Am- 
merdown, near Kilmersdon, northward of the Mendip hills in Somer- 
setshire, and at Doulting, on the south of the same hills. The boring 
by lithodomous molluscs into the carboniferous or mountain lime- 
stone of the Mendip hills, at the time of the accumulation of the in- 
ferior oolite beds, even through oyster shells, adhering now, as they 
did im the lifetime of the animals, to the subjacent carboniferous 
limestone, is well known. Their occurrence in the beds of the oolitic 
series is, however, still more geologically important, as it marks, 
though it may be locally, certam minor divisions in the geological 
time during which the series, up to the great oolite inclusive, was 
deposited. Similar borings, of the date of the inferior oolite, have 
been observed by Dr. Buckland and myself near Bridport, on the coast 
of Dorsetshire, and it would be well to search for evidence of this 
kind, or of any other, such as that seen in certain localities where the 
Bradford encrinites still adhere to the beds on which they grew, 
marking pauses in the accumulations known as the oolitic series 
generally. 
Respecting the mode of occurrence of the Dinornis and other re- 
markable birds found fossil in New Zealand, and previously men- 
tioned, Dr. Mantell has presented us with all the information which 
has up to the present time reached this country. This inquiry was 
attended with much difficulty, in consequence of the unsettled state 
of the orthography of the various localities where the fossil bones 
were obtained, and from the indefinite manner in which the collectors 
described those localities. They would appear to occur in gravel and 
other detrital beds cut through by the rivers, the bones being thus laid 
bare, and perhaps sometimes swept into other places, and again 
covered by mud and silt. In one locality they were found in peat 
exposed at low water, but covered at high tides. Again they are dis- 
