12 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 
scientific objects of the Society. It is both interesting and im- 
portant, covering as it does the fields of—1. Astronomy and 
Physics; 2. Chemistry and Mineralogy; 8. Geology and 
Paleontology; 4. Botany; 5. Microscopical Science ; 6. Geo- 
graphy and Ethnology; 7. Literature and Fine Arts; 8. Medical 
Science; 9. Social and Sanitary Science. Good work has been 
done in nearly all of these Sections, for particulars of which I 
must refer you to the Journal of the Society. 
In addition to the interesting address delivered by your late 
Vice-President (Mr. H. C. Russell) at the opening of the session 
of 1877, seventeen papers were communicated to the Society, 
which will be found at length in the Journal of the Society’s 
proceedings. Of these papers perhaps the most noteworthy are 
those of Mr. Tenison Woods :—I1st. On “the Tertiary Deposits 
of Australia.” 2nd. On “the paleontological evidence of 
Australian Tertiary formation”; and 3rd. On “some Australian 
Tertiary Corals.” And next to these, the two papers by the 
Rev. W. B. Clarke, on “Dromornis australis, a new fossil 
gigantic Bird of Australia,” and “ Sthenurus minor, a new fossil 
extinct species of Kangaroo,”—as illustrative of the geological 
history of animal forms long since passed away—are full of 
interest to the paleontologist. Professor Huxley, in a lecture 
delivered at the Royal Institution last year on “the History of 
Birds,” says that there is not one of the distinctive characteristics : 
of birds as they now exist but has to be given up as 4 : 
characteristic in looking at fossil forms. How true this may be 
of the fossil remains discovered in Australia further researches 
may be necessary to determine. He further says that the — 
discoveries to which he alluded, if they did not indicate the 
actual gradation between birds and reptiles, did show the 
intermediate forms that had existed. 
ee bee 
The report of the Council which has been read to you 4 
by the Honorary Secretary, dealing, as it does most fully, 
with all the details of the Society’s position and progress — 
— the past year, relieves _ me of the duty - inyit. 
