James Thomas Foard, George Highfield Morton, F.G.S., the Rev. John Robberds, B. A., Frederick Price Marrat, and John Birkbeck Nevins, M.D.

(Signed) THOMAS INMAN, President.

DAVID P. THOMSON, Hon. Sec.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, Oct. 3rd, 1859.

Mr. BYERLEY, the Treasurer, then submitted the balance sheet, which had been duly audited, and read his statement of accounts, which was unanimously passed.

The Rev. Henry H. Higgins, M.A., was elected President for the next triennial period.

A cordial vote of thanks was accorded to Dr. Inman, the retiring President; and the Society then proceeded, by ballot, to elect a Council for the present year.

The members chosen were Dr. Inman, Professor Archer, Mr. Byerley, Dr. Thomson, Dr. Edwards, Mr. Redish, Mr. Higginson, Mr. Duckworth, C. Collingwood, M.B., the Rev. John Robberds, Dr. Nevins, Mr. Foard, Mr. Morton, and Mr. Marrat.

The following were elected Vice-Presidents: Dr. Inman, Professor Archer, and Dr. Edwards. Mr. Byerley was re-elected Treasurer, and Dr. Thomson, Honorary Secretary.

ORDINARY MEETING.

The Society having resolved itself into an ordinary meeting, Dr. COLLINGWOOD placed upon the table a species of cuttle-fish, Eledone cirrhosus, obtained alive from the Rock Ferry slip. These animals, which were very difficult to be kept alive for more than four and twenty hours, were not unfrequently taken in deep water outside the river by the fishermen, but the locality whence this specimen was obtained was very remarkable. He also exhibited some very

rare Nudibranchs, which had been taken by Mr. Moore at Hilbre Island, on Monday last. These were a white specimen of the giant of the tribe, Tritonia Hombergii, and one of T. plebeia, deep sea species, both of which, however, had been before captured by himself at Hilbre. But the most important were the two species of the genus Antiopa, the history of which was not a little remarkable. In 1844 M. Verany named a species of Nudibranch which inhabited southern Europe, Janus Spinola, but as the name Janus was already used to designate a genus of insects, Messrs. Alder and Hancock, in their elaborate work, renamed it Antiopa. A remarkable crest between the dorsal tentacles, added to the lamellated tentacles, and branched cells of the papillæ, appeared to warrant a separation of this animal from the genus Proctonotus, which it much resembled. They therefore called it Antiopa splendida, and perhaps it was, without exception, the most beautiful of that beautiful tribe. It inhabited the Mediterranean and south coasts of Europe and England, and was added to the Liverpool fauna by himself during the present summer. Until 1851 it was the only species of Antiopa known, but in that year a new species was discovered at Hilbre Island by Mr. Byerley, which was figured by Alder and Hancock, and called by them Antiopa hyalina. Mr. Byerley found another in 1854, and a third was then upon the table, taken by Mr. Moore at the same spot. It possessed the crest and tentacles of A. cristata, but in other respects came nearer to the Proctonotus. Here, then, in the same vessel were the two species of this remarkable genus-the one (A. cristata) having a singularly wide range, and being one of the few Nudibranchs we possess in common with the Mediterranean Sea, and the other (4. hyalina) having been hitherto nowhere seen except upon that little isolated rock at the mouth of the Dee, called Hilbre Island.

The following communication was then made:

ON THE ELEPHANTS USED IN WAR, BY
THE CARTHAGENIANS.

BY RICHARD BROOKE, Esq., F.S.A.

On the 10th of January last, I was induced to draw the attention of the members of this Society, to a point of considerable interest. From what country did the Carthagenians procure the elephants, which it is admitted by historians, they were in the habit of using in war?

We know from history that the Greeks under Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, used elephants in battle with the Romans, 279 years before our Saviour's birth, and that the Romans during the time of the Empire, commonly used these animals for purposes of state or magnificence; and in my opinion. there cannot be any fair doubt that both the Greeks and Romans obtained them from Asia. The last time, as far as I am able to discover, that the Romans encountered elephants in battle was in the year of our Lord 627, when Gibbon * informs us, that in the Persian army opposed to the Emperor Heraclius, there were 200 elephants; and that after his victories over the Persians, he entered Constantinople in triumph, in a chariot drawn by four elephants.

With respect to the country from whence the Carthagenians obtained them, there may be some difficulty in coming to any certain conclusion. I have never yet met with any author who has ventured to assert, that the natives of Africa, either ancient or modern, had ever domesticated African elephants, or trained them to be useful in battle. Previously to our meeting of the 10th of January last, I was not aware of any writer who had thrown out a suggestion, similiar to the one.

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. vi, p. 227-230.

which I then made, that the Carthagenians obtained their elephants from Asia; but on recently referring to the Universal History, in the account of the defeat of the Carthagenians, by the Romans, under Metellus, before Lilybænum, in Sicily, I have found the following passage; "The fight was very obstinate for some time, and the Romans were even repulsed by the violence of the elephants. But at last the Dartmen wounded these boisterous animals, in such a manner, that they fell foul upon their own troops, and threw them into confusion. This being observed by the Roman general, he salied with a body of fresh forces out of the town, and attacking the enemy in flank, gave them a total defeat. The Carthagenians lost a vast number of men in this action, it being one of the greatest overthrows they ever received in Sicily, besides many elephants, which were either killed or taken, and amongst the rest ten with their Indian leaders."

Subjoined to this passage, I found the following note :"From the passage of Polybius here referred to, it is evident that the Carthagenians before the thirteenth year of the first punic war had an intercourse with India, as receiving elephants, and persons to manage and train them up from thence. This greatly strengthens what Pliny intimates, to wit, that the Carthagenians carried on a trade with the Indians, and imported from India many carbuncles of an inestimable value. This they must either have done by means of caravans, going through the interior parts of Africa to the Arabic gulf, if not through Egypt to Persia and India, or by their own vessels trading to those parts, or lastly by their cummunication with Tyre."

It will probable be in the recollection of the members who were present at the meeting of the Society, on the 10th Jan. last, that I then ventured to give it as my opinion, that the Carthagenians obtained their elephants from Asia through

+ An Universal History, vol. 17, page 529, printed by Osborne, in 1748.

Tyre, or some other port of the Mediterranean, and from thence by sea to Carthage; which still appears to me, in the absence of any express authority to the contrary, to be the most reasonable supposition; and as tamed elephants were from a very early period commonly purchased from the natives of India, and conveyed into other countries, it is far more probable that they were sent from India by land to a Mediterranean port, and thence by sea to Carthage, than either by the Arabian gulf, or entirely by land from Asia, through Egypt to Carthage.*

In the conversation which ensued, the Chairman gave it as his opinion, that as Petra was the ancient highway for Indian traffic to Europe, and most probably to the north of Africa, and was eminently convenient for the passage by land across the isthmus, if elephants were sent from India to Carthage, they would be sent by that route, and not be shipped at all. Dr. Inman remarked that elephants were portrayed upon the sculptures of Nineveh. The trade between Mesopotamia and Palmyra was very extensive at one time. Elephants were supposed to have formed a portion of the tribute brought to the King of Assyria from India; and thus there was another way by which they might reach the shores of the Mediterranean, namely, through Assyria.

See Foot Note, Society's Proceedings, 1858-59, No. xiii, p. 152. [Editor.]