Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 60.djvu/343

316 ocean. There they in dne time breed, and from their eggs are hatched the young Leptocephali, which, after attaining a certain size, cease to feed, and assume the very different form of the elver. The possibility of establishing these remarkable facts depended on the powerful oceanic currents that prevail about the Straits of Messina, bringing up occasionally to the surface the inhabitants of the depths of the sea. Grassi was thus able to obtain from time to time both adult eels with fully developed sexual organs and their larval progeny, and he actually observed in an aquarium the development of a Leptocephalusbrevirostrisinto an elver.

Such highly meritorious contributions to evolution are fitly recognised by the award of the Darwin Medal.

The Statutes relating to the election of Council and Officers were then read, and Professor Liversidge and Dr. Common having been, with the consent of the Society, nominated Scrutators, the votes of the Fellows present were taken, and the following were declared duly elected as Council and Officers for the ensuing year:—

President. —Sir Joseph Lister, Bart., F.R.C.S., D.C.L. Treasurer.—Sir John Evans, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D. a. j. f Professor Michael Foster, M.A., M.D., D.C.L., LL.D. eoe anes. ^ Professor Arthur William Rucker, M.A., D.Sc. Foreign Secretary.—Edward Frankland, D.C.L., LL.D.

Other Members of the Council.

Prof. William Grylls Adams, M .A.; Professor Thomas Clifford Allbutt, M .D.; Professor Robert Bellamy Clifton, M.A.; William Turner Thiselton Dyer, C.M.G.; Prof. James Alfred Ewing, M.A.; Lazarus Fletcher, M .A.; Walter Holbrook Gaskell, M.D.; Prof. Alfred George Greenhill, M.A.; William Huggins, D.C.L.; Prof. Charles Lapworth, LL.D. ; Major Percy Alexander MacMahon, R.A. ; Prof. Raphael Meldola, F.C .S.; Prof. William Ramsay, Ph.D.; The Lord Walsingham, M.A. ; Prof. Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, M.A.; Adml. William James Lloyd Wharton, C.B.

The thanks of the Society were given to the Scrutators.