DUBLIN NATUEAL HI ST OK Y SOCIETY. 
27 
it now holds. During the Session seven new Members were added to the 
Soeiety, and one former Member rejoined, making a total increase of 
Ordinary Members of eight. On the other hand, the loss of Members 
has been four—Halliday Bruce, Esq., by death; and three, Professor 
Allman, Dr. Earran, and B. J. Usher, Esq., by resignation. One As¬ 
sociate and six Corresponding Members have also been elected through 
the year, giving a total gain of eleven Members to the Society. 
The additions to th e Museum have been both numerous and valuable, 
as will be seen by reference to the list of them in the Journal, and in the 
Beport of the Museum Committee, about to be presented to you this 
evening. Your Council cannot but regret, however, that this most im¬ 
portant department is not as yet in as perfect a condition as could be 
desired, owing to the heavy yearly .charges under which the Society 
labours; but it is to be hoped, ere the close of the next year, that 
some at least of the departments at present incomplete and unarranged 
will be fully displayed for the inspection of the Members. One impor¬ 
tant group—the Crustacea—heretofore only partially represented, has 
been during the year arranged, and, owing to the donations of Members, 
now contains more than three-fourths of the Irish Decapods, including 
nearly all of the rarer species, and several unique specimens. These 
are now so displayed as to be easy of access for reference and identifica¬ 
tion. 
Two years since, your Council entered into arrangements by which 
the papers read before the meetings should be published in a collected 
form, in order to preserve in full the new facts elicited during each Ses¬ 
sion, and thus plape the Society in a position to exchange its Transac¬ 
tions with home and foreign Societies. The good effect of this arrange¬ 
ment was so apparent, that when, at the commencement of the past 
Session, through the unavoidable expenses attendant on the occupation 
of these rooms, a difficulty arose in carrying out the pecuniary portion 
of the agreement, your Council felt justified in appealing to the Mem¬ 
bers to form a publication fund, to which appeal many of the Members 
liberally responded, and your Council is now enabled to present to each 
Member not in arrear the volume of Transactions before you. 
B. P. Williams, Esq., having liberally placed at the disposal of the 
Council a number of plates of Sehastes Norvegicus and Coitus Grcenlan - 
dicus , drawn on stone by him from specimens exhibited in this Society, 
they have appended them to the Journal for this year, with a short ac¬ 
count of the record of these rare fishes by William Andrews, Esq., your 
Honorary Secretary, who first detected their occurrence on the coast of 
Ireland. A long and detailed paper on the British Oniscoidea was read 
before the British Association at their late Meeting in this city, 250 co¬ 
pies of which the author liberally placed at the disposal of the Council 
for presentation to the Members, which it accepted and appended as a 
Supplement to the Journal: the Journal thus contains eleven plates and 
woodcuts of rare or new Irish animals. 
Dr. Kinahan has kindly undertaken to receive the subscriptions of 
Members who may be anxious to subscribe to the fund for publication, 
