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A posthumous essay on "Instinct," by Mr. Charles Darwin, was read on the 6th December to the Fellows of the Linnaean Society, Burlington House, by Mr. Romanes, the secretary. The paper, which treated of the instincts of animals, and the bearing of the subject on the Darwinian theory, was originally written for the "Origin of Species," but never published. In it Darwin endeavours to throw light upon the origin of four manifestations of what is usually called instinct:—(1) migration; (2) instinctive fear; (3) nidification and habitations of birds; (4) habitations of mammals. A discussion followed the reading of the essay, in which Professors Huxley and Allman, Mr. Wallace and many other gentlemen joined. Professor Huxley thought the essay was not a matured work of Mr. Darwin's, and regretted that in the paper there was not a clearer expression of what Dr. Darwin knew full well, viz., that the world was not constructed upon any plan likely to produce agreeable feelings in the breast of the philanthropist.