Vol 58. | ANNIVERSARY MEELING—LYELL MEDALS. xlviz 
Survey he was necessarily much occupied with field-work ; and we 
have to thank him for a detailed account of the vast mountainous 
area comprised within the territories of Kashmir. 
Since his return to this country he has not been idle. He has. 
contributed no less than ten volumes to the Official Catalogue of the 
British Museum ; he has visited the Museums of Argentina and added 
much to our knowledge of the remarkable Tertiary fauna of South 
America; and he has furnished to this and other Societies numerous. 
descriptions of vertebrata from the Mesozoic and Tertiary forma- 
tions of various countries. His extensive knowledge of fossil forms 
has enabled him to contribute to two of the most remarkable 
zoological books published during the last decade of the nineteenth 
century. I refer to ‘Mammals, Living & Extinct, by Sir Wilham 
Flower and him, and to the ‘ Dictionary of Birds’ by Prof. A. 
Newton. Of late years he has devoted himself more especially to 
the study of recent forms; but in his work on the Geographica! 
_ History of Mammals he has suécessfully brought his wide knowledge 
of the mammalian life of past times to bear on the important 
question of geographical distribution. 
As an old fellow-student of his at Cambridge, it gives me the 
greatest pleasure to be the means of transmitting to him the Lyell 
Medal on behalf of the Council of the Geological Society. In 
making this Award the Council desire especially to commemorate 
the important services which be has rendered to Vertebrate 
Paleontology. . 
Dr. Barner, having expressed on behalf of the recipient the 
latter’s regret that an engagement at Norwich prevented him from 
being present in person to receive the Medal, read the following 
communication from Mr. Lydekker : 
“The award of a Lyell Medal would under any circumstances be a cause of great 
gratification to the recipient. But I have special reason to be gratified at the reward 
that the Council have been good enough to bestow on me, because in matters scientific 
I seem to have passed unconsciously through a kind of evolutionary process, and to 
have departed further and further from the line of study connected with the Geo- 
logical Society. During my term of service on the Geological Survey of India I was 
largely occupied with Geology proper, although devoting a considerable proportion 
of my time to Vertebrate Paleontology. For several years after my return to this 
country that fascinating subject occupied the greater share of my attention. But 
of late years I have been led, by the force of circumstances, to transfer my time more 
and more to recent animals and geographical distribution. Moreover, I regret to: 
say, much of my time has been given to popular or semi-popular writing, rather than 
to strictly scientific work. Under these circumstances it is especially gratifying to 
find that the Geological Society is not unmindful of my past efforts to add to our 
