President's Address. 
297 
must hope that we may stili be favoured by his assistance, 
although he may not often be able to come amongst us. 
The work of the Society for the last session has been well 
divided amongst the members. On the Vertebrata the 
papers consist of those of Dr Cleland on the articular pro- 
cesses of the Atlas and Axis ; Dr M'Bain on the anatomical 
distinctions between the skull of the Manatus senegalensis 
and a Manatus from the Bay of Honduras ; Mr Edwards on 
inflammation in fishes, in which he has determined that 
those animals are quite indifferent to the infliction of wounds ; 
Mr Peach, of Wick, on the Argentine, Anchovy, and other 
fishes, and on the termination of the vertebrate column in 
the tails of the Salmon tribe ; Mr J. M. Mitchell and Mr G. 
Logan on the natural history and fisheries of the Herring 
and the Sprat ; Mr W. S. Young on the (Equorial pipe- 
fish and its specific distinctions. In Entomology, Mr E. T. 
Logan's paper — on the occurrence of Vanessa polyclilora and 
Cheimatohia horearea in Edinburghshire. On the Ccelentrata 
two notices by Dr Stre thill Wright — on reproduction in 
Ghrysaora, and on A tractylis coccinea. On the Protozoa we 
have Dr M'Bain's notices of sponges from Shetland and else- 
where, together with his very valuable and interesting ex- 
position of Bowerbank's recent discoveries and classification, 
and Dr Strethill Wright's papers on reproduction in Ophryo- 
dendron, on Dendrophrya and Lecythia, and on Khizopod 
structure, and his discovery of ova and spermatozoa in that 
class of animals. In Geology and Mineralogy several very 
important papers have been read, including Mr E. H. Tra- 
quair s on the Trilobites of the Carboniferous Limestones of 
Fifeshire, accompanied by beautiful delineations of species. 
Mr Andrew Taylor on the exposure of the Liberton Old Eed 
Sandstone conglomerate bed at Newington ; and Mr John 
S. Livingston on the state of our knowledge respecting meta- 
morphism in the mineral kingdom, in which he has given a 
most interesting account of the production of minerals by 
artificial means. To all these gentlemen I beg, in the name 
of the Society, to give cordial thanks for their assistance in 
the furtherance of its objects. To Dr J. A. Smith, our 
Secretary, special thanks must be offered for the constant 
