During the past winter your Council have permitted the Numismatic Society and the Montreal Literary Club to hold their meeting in their rooms on evenings not specially devoted to our own Society, and at a reasonable rate for fuel and light.

Your Council would further suggest, and in accordance with the amended act of Parliament, that the number of Vice-Presidents should not exceed nine, and that the Council should also consist of nine members.

Your Council would beg leave further to state, that they have received a communication from Mr. Leeming, calling attention to the fact that the remains of the late Rev. Mr. Sommerville are at present in the old Protestant burying-ground in Dorchester street, and calling on the Society to assist, conjointly with the Corporation of the Montreal General Hospital, the Trustees of St. Gabriel Church, and a clergyman now resident in Quebec, for the removal of the body to the Mount Royal Cemetery, and also the Monument at present erected over his remains. Your Council would therefore suggest that some action be taken in this matter at as early a period as possible.

They have also received a communication from the Board of Arts and Manufactures, in which it sets forth that it has "in its hands a considerable property, subject to a ground-rent, and burthened with hypotheques so large as to consume all its annual grant, and render the Board unable to carry on its proper operations, viz., to increase and maintain its free Library, to establish and keep up a Museum of Industrial Products, and to promote the education of mechanics and artizans.

"The property thus held has been set apart for the use of scientific and literary bodies who might wish to erect buildings for their accommodation, having been acquired with a view to such uses. In fact the Board has considered itself, in some sort, a trustee for these other public bodies, either existing or projected. But the members of the Board, hitherto disappointed of relief from the Provincial Government, feel that they cannot continue to hold this property for a much longer period, at a cost so great as the abdication of their own functions under the statute, and are therefore desirous, as speedily as possible, to come to an arrangement-if it be possible-with your own and other societies, by which a building-site may be transferred to you on easy terms, and co-operation secured between the Society and this Board. in promoting objects which we may have in common.

"Either by transferring a portion of the land around the Exhibition building, by assisting your Society to erect upon it a building adapted for its uses, or by securing your co-operation in the extension of the present building upon a plan adapted to your wants, we hope that this Board may be of assistance to you, and receive co-operation and support in return.."

Your Council would recommend the consideration of this matter to the Society, in furtherance of the said object.

Your Council cannot but express its regret, that the report of the treasurer shows a balance against the Society; and would urge, that efforts be made by each individual member, to endeavor by all means to increase the funds so necessary for the support and furtherance of the objects for which it was founded.

ness.

Your Council must now resign their charge into the hands of others, wishing them a prosperous and increasing year of usefulOne thing your Council would place on record, is the kindness and unanimity that has actuated the whole of the members, a sure prestige of increasing strength and usefulness; and they close their report with a fervent hope, that the Montreal Natural History Society may grow and prosper.

MONTHLY MEETING.

The monthly meeting of the Society took place at its rooms, on Monday evening, May 30th, Dr. Dawson, President, in the chair. The following donations were announced:

TO THE MUSEUM.

From A. Ramsay, Esq.-Fine specimen of the Snow Goose (Anser hyperboreus, Pallas), shot at Nun's Island.

From James Ferrier, jun., Esq.-The Turnstone Strepsilas interpres, Illiger; Curious Japanese Mirror and Case.

From Mrs. McCulloch.--138 skins of Canadian birds, 5 do foreign, 20 do. mammals.

From E. E. Shelton, Esq.-4 Indian pipes, from an excavation in Hospital Street.

From Jas. Claxton, Esq.-8 specimens of minerals (Quartz, Quartz with Pyrites, Cale Spar, and Sulphate of Barytes), from Devon and Cornwall, England.

From Mr. W. Hunter.-The yellow-bellied Woodpecker (Centurus flaviventris, Swainson); the golden-winged Woodpecker (Colaptes auratus, Linn.); 2 Robins (Turdus migratorius, Linn.); 1 blue yellow-backed Warbler (Parula Americana, Bonaparte).

TO THE LIBRARY.

Preliminary List of the Plants of Buffalo.-From the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences.

Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, by J. C. Loudon; 8 vols. 8vo., illustrated. From James Ferrier, jun., Esq.

Bombay Magnetical and Meteorological Observations, 1862.

NEW MEMBERS.

John Tempest, and Alexander S. Ritchie, Esqs., were elected ordinary members of the Society.

PROCEEDINGS.

The Recording Secretary then read a communication by Dr. Bowerbank, on two new N. American Sponges. The first of these was a small marine form of the genus Tethea), dredged by Dr. Dawson off the coast of Portland, Maine. The second was a green fresh-water species (of the genus Spongilla), occurring in quiet little bays along the St. Lawrence about Montreal, also in Upper Canada, in which places it has been taken by Dr. Dawson, Rev. A. F. Kemp, Mr. R. J. Fowler, and others. Dr. Dawson remarked that a great number of the N. American sponges differed somewhat from allied European forms, and were probably new species. The present paper, he remarked, might be looked upon as the first instalment of a somewhat elaborate memoir upon these very ill-understood and low forms of animal life, to the study of which Dr. Bowerbank has paid much attention. Dr. Dawson then gave an account of several species of Annelida and Bryozoa, from Mingan and Metis. The Mingan specimens were collected by Mr. Richardson, jun., of the Geol. Survey, and the Metis forms by Mrs. H. Parkinson, The doctor commenced by making drawings explanatory of the structure of the animal of the genus Spirorbis. He explained that these creatures were marine wormlike animals, which constructed small, flattened spiral shells, which were generally attached to sea-weeds, stones, or shells. He then ex

hibited eight different species of this genus, and pointed out lucidly the difference between them. After exhibiting a species of Serpula, with its irregular cylindrical shelly tube, the Doctor called attention to some of the Bryozoa of the Gulf. He stated that some of the species resembled brown sea-weeds, others corallines, but that the structure of the animals was nearest to that of some of the bivalve shells. He exhibited examples of some fifteen or sixteen species, illustrating the subject by diagrams,and by microscopical preparations showing the shape of the cells of these creatures, and some of their organs of defence. After some discussion as to the supposed uses of these animals, the meeting broke up.

ON THE BIVALVED ENTOMOSTRACA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS STRATA OF GREAT BRITAIN and Ireland.

By Professor T. RUPERT JONES, F.G.S., and J. W. KIRBY, Esq. After a review of what former obs rvers have published on the Bivalved Entomostraca of the Carboniferous formations, the authors pr reed to point out: 1s', a few rather doubtful Cyprides or Cand mæ, from the Coal-measures 2ndly, Cytheres; of which there are about eight species. chiefly from the Coal-measures. 3rly. Bair lie; about eight species, mostly from the Mountainlim stone and its shales. 4thly, Cypridini na; comprising Cypridina, Cypridella, Cyprella, Entom sconchus, and Cytherella, from the Moun ain-li nestone. A fine collection of these rare forms from Little Island, Cork, Iberally placed at Messrs. Jones and Kirkby's disposal by Mr. Joseph Wright, will elucidate th rela tionships of these hitherto obscure genera and their species. 5thly, Leperditidae; comprising Leperditia ( which genus

belong the so-called Cypris Scotoburdigalensis, C. inflata, C subrecta, Cythere inornata, and others; many of them dwarf varieties of one species, and mostly belonging to the Mountainlimestone series); Entomis (Mountain-limestone), D. vonian and Carboniferous forms of which have been mistaken to Cypridinidno; Beyrichia (from nearly all parts of the Carboniferous system, several species, of which B. arcuata, Bean, sp., is the most common); and Kirkbyce, somewhat rare, and chiefly from the Mountain-limestone series.

Leperditia and Beyrichia are also Silurian and Devonian genera; they do not appear to pass upwards into the Permian

formation. Bairdia and Kirkbya occur first in the Carboniferous and re-appear in the Permian deposits, even in the same specific, forms; ani Baird a has been freely represented in S condary and Tertiary deposits, and exists at present. Of the Cypridinidæ under notice, Cypridella, Cyprell, and Entomoconchus appear to be confined to the Mountain-limestone; Cypridina occurs in the Perm an, and with Cytherella is found in Secondary and Tertiary rocks, and in existing seas. Entomis is a Silurian and Devoman genus, especially characterizing the so-called "Cypridinen-Schiefer" of Germany.

M'Coy's Da hna primævi is a Cypridina; De Koninck's Cypridina Elwardsiana and Cypridella cruciata are Cypridelo: his Cypriding annulata and Cyprella chrys lidea are Cyprellæ ; and his Cypridinu concentrica is an Entomis.

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE LATE PRINCIPAL LEITCH.

Our issue of yesterday contained the sad, though not unexpected, announcement of Principal Leitch's death. William Leitch was born at Rothsay, in the Island of Bute, Scotland, in the year 1814, and was at his death under fifty years of age. The robust health of his boyhood was taken from him by an accident, which confined him for eighteen months, and threatened even his life before he recovered. When about fourteen years of age he fell from the mast of a yacht in the bay of his native town, and the fall produced a comminuted fracture of the hip-joint, which made him lame for life. This accident was the occasion of determining,in a somewhat remarkable way, the tendencies by which all his subsequent life has been characterized; for during his long and dreary confinement, the relief from intense suffering, which most boys of even high intellectual character would have sought in the fascination of fiction, he found in the study of mathematics; and his after life, which became almost from necessity that of a student, was devoted chiefly to the mathematical sciences. After finishing his preparatory studies for the Church of Scotland, he did not immediately enter on the practical work of his profession, but remained for some years in connection with the Glasgow Observatory, under the late Professor Nichol. In the year 1843 however, he accepted a presentation to the Parish of Monimail in Fifeshire, where he found that congenial quiet in which he