12 
REPORT OF THE 
home by her brother, Mr. James Backhouse, from Australia 
and New Zealand, a large number of duplicates which were 
desiderata to the Society’s Collection. A specimen of the 
Orange Cowrie, a rare and costly shell, has also been pre¬ 
sented to the Society by Miss Wheeler, of Bristol. The foreign 
Collection has been further augmented, by exchange with the 
Rev. William Thornton, of Kimbolton, and Mrs. Davies, of St. 
Leonard’s Place, York. An instructive example of the genus 
Magilus from the Red Sea, imbedded in coral, was purchased 
in London during the spring, at a trifling cost. The Society has 
received from Mr. Joseph Clarke, of Cincinnati, another series 
of North American land and fresh-water shells. It contains 
many duplicates which are useful in carrying out the system of 
exchanges, from which considerable benefits have already been 
derived. The British Marine Collection has also received 
several useful additions during the year. 
The Collection of Comparative Osteology has been augmented 
by a specimen of a well developed head of the Blue-faced 
Mandrill, presented by the Curator of that department. The 
preparations of the sclerotic hones of birds in this Collection 
have enabled the Curator, Mr. Allis, to confirm, by additional 
evidence, the propriety of placing the Dodo amongst the Colum- 
bidae, in accordance with the recent investigations of Mr. H. 
Strickland and Dr. Melville, in their work on that extinct bird. 
Out of seventy species whose sclerotic rings are separately 
exhibited, three species of Columbidae are the only birds which 
have hut eleven separate bones to form the sclerotic ring, this 
being the precise number met with in the Dodo, and being the 
smallest number Mr. Allis has ever met with in any bird, Avith 
the single exception of the Australian Podargus, in which bird 
the ring is composed of only one bone. 
The Library has continued to receive, by donation, the Tran¬ 
sactions of several learned Societies, and some original works 
have been presented by their authors. In addition to the 
various periodical publications for which the Society subscribes, 
three works have been purchased during the year, viz : Mr. H. 
Strickland and Dr. Melville’s important work on the Dodo, 
Mr. Cumming’s History of the Isle of Man, and Swainson’s 
