Esq., dated South Australia, Marrh 25, 1841, was read. This letter refers to some specimens which Mr. Harvey had forwarded on a former occasion as a present to the Society, and moreover states that he had, at the time of writing the letter, shipped another collection, part of which is also intended for the Society. I n this letter, which is dated Sept. 25, 1841, Mr. Guise calls the attention of the Members to the fact that a young Hoopoe (Upupa Epups, huct.) was killed on the eighth of

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... , at Frampton-on-Severn, by the gamekeeper of Henry Clifford, Esq., of Frampton Court. Mr. Lovell Reeve thensubmitted to the Meeting a Tabula Methodica of the plan he intended to adopt in his forthcoming CONCHOLOGIA SYSTEMATICA, for the arrangement of the Lepades and Conchiferous Mollusca. H e stated, that in reviewing the history of Conchology, which may Le dated from the time of Adanson and Linnzms, it was evident that few of these remarkable animals were then known ; and although the classification proposed by the latter has been abandoned, from the fact of its having been based almost entirely upon the outward characters of the shells alone, without reference to the anatomy or habits of their animal inhabitants; it may be remembered as a most laudable attempt on the part of that great father of natural history, to introduce into his theory of nature n scientific arrangement of certain shells then before him, which he knew to be the production of certain once living animals. This fallacious method, therefore, was his alternative ; he must have been well aware that he could no more arrive a t the true history of the Mollusca by their shells alone, than at the natural history of Birds by thcir feathers done ; but, in the absence of the soft and living parts, he succeeded in establishing an arrangement, by noting such marks and symbols on the shell as could be slipposed by analogy to indicate corresponding characters and developments in the organization of its animal. Since the time of Linnseus our intercourse with foreign lands and the general progress of civilization have given increased facilities of obtaining the animals in their native condition ; thus, their anatomy and habits have become the popular subject of investigation, raising the study of Conchology to a level with the rest of the natural sciences. From the comniencement of the present century various naturalists have assisted in reorganizing the arrangement and division of the Lepades and hlollusra ; Bruguikre, Lamarck, Cnrier, De Blainville, Desliayes and Gray have successively devoted A letter from W. V. Guise, Esq., was next read.