The Secretary then read the Report of the Council for 1876.
The following gentlemen were elected Members of Council for 1877:—Sir Sidney Smith Saunders, Professor Westwood, Rev. A.E. Eaton, Rev. T.A. Marshall, and Messrs. H.W. Bates, G.C. Champion, J. W. Douglas, J.W. Dunning, F. Grut, R. Meldola, E. Saunders, H.T. Stainton, and J. Jenner Weir.
The following officers were subsequently elected for the year 1877:—President, Professor Westwood, M.A., F.L.S., &c.; Treasurer, J. Jenner Weir; Hon. Secretaries, Messrs. F. Grut and R. Meldola; Hon. Librarian, Rev. T.A. Marshall.
The President (Prof. Westwood) having been unfortunately prevented from attending by an accident, the reading of his Address on the progress of Entomology for the past year was unavoidably postponed until the next meeting, on the 7th February.
A cordial vote of thanks was given to the President, with an expression of regret at the cause of his absence on this occasion. A vote of thanks was also given to the Treasurer and Secretaries.—F.G.
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
In the Preface to this important work the author describes it as "an attempt to collect and summarise the existing information on the distribution of land animals, and to explain the more remarkable and interesting of the facts, by means of established laws of physical and organic change."
Of living naturalists Mr. Wallace is probably the one best fitted, by his training and experience, to deal with the subject which he has undertaken: he is familiar with the aspects of life in three of the richest zoological provinces of the world,—namely, South America, and the Indo- and Austro-Malayan Archipelagos,—and those who know him personally are aware that the geographical distribution of animals has been a study with him for the last twenty years. The two published volumes which embody the result of his labours are divided into four parts, i.e., the Principles and General Phenomena of Distribution; the Distribution of Extinct Animals; Zoological Geography; and Geographical Zoology.
