480 Miscellaneous. 



they were not yet arranged, and, for that purpose, the committee had 

 ordered new cases to be made. The part of the society's transactions 

 formerly announced were, from unavoidable causes, not yet ready for 

 publication, and although the committee regretted the delay, yet they 

 had, by it, been enabled to add to the part several local articles of 

 great value. Often as those papers had been praised by others, and 

 pleasing as that praise was to the authors, it would still be a great- 

 er pleasure to them to know that a law had been passed at the late 

 meeting of the British Association at Liverpool, by which the au- 

 thors of those papers were made free members of the council of that 

 association. It also afforded the committee sincere pleasure to 

 think that the efforts of the society, in conjunction with those of the 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, had been crowned with success, 

 and that it had been determined that the next meeting of the Bri- 

 tish Association was to be held in this town. Such a determination 

 did the highest honour to the town, and, as the Natural History So- 

 ciety had taken an active part in inducing the Association to come to 

 that determination, it would be their duty to do everything in their 

 power for the Association when it came. The committee, therefore, 

 ventured to express a hope that many members of the society would 

 prepare papers to read at that assemblage, by which the so- 

 ciety would maintain that credit with the Association which it 

 had already gained, and that, afterwards, if it was found neces- 

 sary, they would allow those papers to be printed for the benefit of 

 science. The committee also recommended that the next anniversary 

 meeting of the society should be held immediately after the close 

 of the meeting of the British Association, and that some of the most 

 learned members of the Association should be invited to attend the 

 meeting, a circumstance which, the committee conceived, would be 

 highly beneficial to the interests of the society. The committee, 

 in conclusion, had to state that the plan, recommended previously, 

 of admitting the public to the museum, had been acted upon by 

 them ; that certain days had been set apart for their admission, and 

 that the museum had occasionally been opened in the evenings. By 

 these means thousands had been gratified with a sight of the museum, 

 and the committee had again the gratification of announcing that 

 they were not aware of any loss or damage sustained in consequence 

 of such unrestricted admission. 



Ornithological Society of London. — The four leading 

 peculiarities which distinguish and recommend this society are, 

 first, that it furnishes a gratuitous exhibition of birds, which 



