Royal Physical Society. 373 



Strethill Wright, M.D. ; W. H. Lowe, M.D. ; Alexander Rose, Esq. ; 



George Logan, Esq., W.S. 



Secretary. — John Alexander Smith, M.D. 



Assistant Secretary. — George Lawson, Ph.D. 



Treasurer.' — 'William Oliphant, Esq. 



Honorary Librarian. — Robert F. Logan, Esq. 



Library Committee. — John L. Stewart, Esq.; Alexander Bry son, Esq.; 

 Patrick Dalmahoy, Esq., W.S. 



James M'Bain, M.D., R.N., formerly a Non-Resident Member, was 

 admitted a Member of the Society. 



The following donations to the Library were laid on the Table, and 

 thanks voted to the donors : — 



1. — Resumen de los Trabajos Meteorologicos. 1854, verificados en el 

 Real Observatorio de Madrid bajo la Direccion de Don Manuel Rico y 

 Sinobas. From Don Manuel Rico y Sinobas. 2. — Ophthalmic Hospital 

 Reports, and Journal of the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, No. L, 

 1857. Edited by J. F. Streatfeild. From the Editor. 



The following communications were read : — 



I. On the Skull of a Wombat (Phascolomys ) from the Bone 



Caves of Australia, with a few general remarks on the Marsupiata. 

 (The cranium was exhibited.) By James M'Bain, M.D., R.N. 



After some preliminary remarks upon the first discovery of 

 marsupial animals — the opossums in America, and afterwards 

 the kangaroos in Australia, during the first voyage of Captain 

 Cook — it was stated that upwards of seventy species have al- 

 ready been found on the Australian continent. That recent 

 species also inhabit Tasmania, New Zealand, and several 

 islands of the Indian seas. Fossil remains have been disco- 

 vered in the Stonefield slates, near Oxford, belonging to the 

 Lias formation. One species of Didelphis (Z). Cuvierii) in 

 the Montmartre gypsum, near Paris, and at least five genera 

 from the bone caves of Wellington Valley in Australia, have 

 been found in a fossil condition. A brief review of the 

 classification was gone over, and the grounds upon which 

 the various classifications were based. That of Profesor Owen 

 is founded on the teeth, stomach, and the presence or absence 

 of an intestinum caecum, in reference to the food of these ani- 

 mals. The characteristic term marsupial, applied to this 

 group of mammalia, is derived from two bones situated on the 



