EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS. 
153 
with privately, namely, the lamented death of the late Secretary. He felt that 
the Society had sustained a loss of no ordinary kind, for to the personal exertions 
of Mr. Bell was the present flourishing condition of the Society owing. Such 
services deserved an especial mark of the Society’s regards, and a feeling expres¬ 
sive of regret was accordingly read and unanimously responded to. 
The President intimated to the members that he had besides to submit a money 
motion for the benefit of the distressed family of the late Secretary; and as the 
Vice-presidents had undertaken to perform the secretarial duties of the Institu¬ 
tion till the annual general meeting, to be held the 9th of next month (January), 
he proposed that the salary now in abeyance be transferred to the family of Mr. 
Bell until the election of a new Secretary. The motion was accordingly laid on 
the table. 
Dr. Wallich then rose and submitted, as a further testimony of the estima¬ 
tion in which their late Secretary was held, and the sense the Society entertain 
of their great loss, that the meeting adjourn. 
This proposition was acceded to, but as ♦ the President had one important 
communication to make, an exception was made in its favour. It was the receipt 
by the overland mail just come in, of a despatch from the Home Government, 
through the authorities here, calling for a statistical return of the prices of corn 
throughout the empire, as well as of all the chief products of the land, intimating 
that the board of customs should assist in the undertaking. The despatch was 
forwarded to the President of the Society by the Governor of Bengal, with a 
request that he would submit it to the Agricultural Society, for the purpose of 
recommending the most ready mode of obtaining such a desideratum; and ac¬ 
cordingly the President read the names of several gentlemen as being most con¬ 
versant with statistical matters, and from their official situation best adapted to 
be formed into a committee to consider the question, if they would ‘kindly under¬ 
take the office. 
Mr. G. Prinsep exhibited to the members present a specimen of Opuntia with 
the true Cochineal insect which had just reached him from England, through the 
kindness of Mr. Anderson, of Chelsea, and Professor Royle. * 
EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS. 
ZOOLOGY. 
1. Brazilian Fossils. —M. Lund, of Lagoat-Santa, in Brazil, has made a 
voluminous report to the French Academy of Sciences, concerning the fossil mam- 
miferous animals of the district, from which the following is an extract 
vol. v.— NO. xxxvi. 
u 
