1865.] Zoology and Animal Physiology. 131 



X. ZOOLOGY AND ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



(Including the Proceedings of the Zoolcgiccd Society.) 



The Copley Medal of the Eoyal Society has this year been awarded 

 to Mr. Charles Darwin, for his important researches in Geology, 

 Zoology, and Botanical Physiology, but we are sorry to add that his 

 state of health would not allow of his receiving it in person ; and one 

 of the Eoyal Medals to Mr. J. Lockhart Clarke, F.R.S., for his re- 

 searches on the intimate structure of the spinal cord and brain, and 

 on the development of the spinal cord. 



The Zoological results of the late expedition to Palestine under 

 Mr. Tristram, consist of the collection of 130 specimens of mammals, 

 1,760 birds, 300 reptiles, and 100 fishes. Amongst the invertebrata 

 the principal attention of the expedition was devoted to the terrestrial 

 molluscs and diurnal lepidoptera, of each of which very fine series 

 were obtained, as well as a considerable number of coleoptera and 

 orthoptera. The species of birds new to science are but few, but 

 many rare and little known forms are amongst them. We understand 

 that the mammals of the collection will be named by Dr. Gray and 

 Mr. Tomes, the reptiles by Dr. Gunther, the insects by Mr. Bates, 

 and the birds and molluscs by Mr. Tristram himself. The whole 

 results of their investigations will idtimately be combined in a general 

 work upon the Natural History of Palestine. 



Professor de Filippi, of Turin, has lately delivered an address before 

 that university upon the relation of man to the lower animals, adding 

 his name to the daily increasing list of distinguished naturalists who 

 hold opinions which correspond, more or less, with those put forward 

 by Mr. Darwin. Without following the professor through the argu- 

 ments by which he endeavours to show that " the idea of the species, 

 like that of all the other elements of classification, is to be regarded 

 as an arbitrary conception of the human mind, having no real existence 

 in nature," he arrives at the result that " a physiological determination 

 of the species is impossible, and henceforward we can only speak of 

 systematic species, of species of convenience. What we are in the 

 habit of denominating races or varieties are incipient species ; what 

 we call species are well-defined varieties, and especially varieties con- 

 firmed by a distant origin." With regard to the position of man in 

 nature, even admitting, as he does, the probability of a simioid ancestry 

 for our species, he thinks that we must not depend wholly upon the 

 evidence to be obtained from a knowledge of the comparative anatomy 

 of man and the apes. Man, he holds, is something more than an ape, 

 with his legs elongated, his facial angle widened, the capacity of his 

 cranium enlarged, and in it a few grammes more of that phospliuretted 

 paste which is called brain. The place of man in nature must be 

 determined not by the greater or less number of morphological 

 characters subject to variation even within the narrow limits of the 

 species, but by the comparison of the virtuality proper to man with 

 that of animals. In the great advance of intellectual manifestations 



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