Proceedings of the British Association. 445 



flags ought never to have been included with these ; they belonged to 

 the great system of North Wales and Cumberland, consisting of many 

 successive universal masses of very different character, and contain- 

 ing groups of fossils developed as one common type ; the Professor 

 thought some general name ought to be applied to them, such as the 

 geologists of Europe and the rest of the world would accept. They 

 constituted a true Protozoic group, as far at least as England was con- 

 cerned ; and the absence of fossils in the rocks below them, shows that 

 the end of the story had been reached as far as regarded animal life. 



1. On the Silurian region of the counties of Galway and south of 

 Mayo : 2. On the Fossiliferous Slate district of the counties of Water- 

 ford, Wexford, Wicklow, Kildare, &c, by Mr. R. Griffiths. The series of 

 rocks described in the first of these communications occupy a district 

 usually known as Connemara, bounded on the north by Clew Bay, 

 in the county of Mayo, south by Galway Bay, west by the Atlan- 

 tic, and east by Lough Corrib and Lough Mask, which separate it from 

 the great carboniferous limestone field of Ireland. In the second com- 

 munication, Mr. Griffiths describes the extensive slate district situated 

 between the east coast of the counties of Waterford, Wexford, and Wick- 

 low, and the granite district of Wicklow and Carlow. 



Friday. 

 Section D.— ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 



A report ' On the Marine Zoology of Corfu and the Ionian Isles,' by 

 Capt. Portlock, R.N. — The researches of Capt. Portlock, by means of 

 the dredge, were confined to the channel between Corfu and Vido, to a 

 narrow strip beyond Vido, and to a similar narrow strip extending 

 from Cape Sidero to Castraves. The bottom of the sea in these districts 

 was mostly clay, and consequently bad for dredging. 



Prof. E. Forbes observed, that although the paper indicated much 

 zeal and labour, yet it was defective. Many of the species described as 

 new were not new species at all, and Capt. Portlock had been led into 

 error by the want of books. It was also not stated from what depth 

 the animals were dredged up, and yet this was one of the most impor- 

 tant points. What was wanted in such reports were not critical re- 

 marks on species, but a statement of what had been found, or speci- 

 mens which might be examined. 



The Report of Messrs. Alder and Hancock, on Nudibranchiate Mol- 

 lusca, was then read. The reporters alluded to the researches of M. de 

 Quatefages on the Nudibranchiate Mollusca, and especially his placing 

 some of them under a new order, which he called Phlebenterata. 



