262 president's addkess. 



Echinodermata" the first part of which appeared in the Annals 

 of February last year. Nor have I been able to make any pro- 

 gress, during the same period, with my promised " Catalogue of 

 the Crustacea of Durham and Northumberland." The only Natural 

 History work, indeed, that I have done, was during my short 

 summer holiday, when, having been appointed by the British 

 Association one of the members of a Committee to examine the 

 Marine Fauna of the Channel Islands, I accompanied Mr. Jeffreys 

 and Mr. E. Eay Lankester to Guernsey, and dredged from thence 

 among the Islands. The great strength of the currents and force 

 of the tides, combined with the rockiness of the bottom, make 

 dredging around Guernsey extremely difficult. The result how- 

 ever of the few weeks' work which the Committee did there was 

 upon the whole very satisfactory, nearly forty animals previously 

 unknown to the British Fauna were met with belonging to the 

 classes Crustacea, Tunicata, Polyzoa, Actinozoa, Hydrozoa, Echi- 

 nodermata, and Porifera. These last were submitted to Dr. 

 Bowerbank for examination, and have been pronounced by him to 

 be the richest collection of British Sponges he has ever examined. 

 He has not yet quite completed their examination, but has already 

 found among them seventeen species which are new to science. 



Professor Oliver, owing to the death of Sir "W. J. Hooker, has 

 virtually gained a step at Kew, although he still retains his for- 

 mer designation of "Keeper of the Herbarium and Library of 

 the Boyal Gardens." He has during the year published a few 

 short papers in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society ; but his 

 time has been chiefly occupied with a proposed "Flora of Tro- 

 pical Africa" which Government proposes to bring out. The 

 first volume of this Flora is not as yet quite ready for the press. 



The Rev. H. B. Tristram has been extremely active with his 

 pen in makiug known some of the results of his scientific expe- 

 dition to Palestine. " The Land of Israel" which has been most 

 favourably reviewed, gives us a general insight into the scope of 

 his travels. In the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society" we 

 find the following papers — 



Report on the Birds of Palestine. 



Report on the Fishes and Reptiles of Palestine. 



