THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 253 



skill, clearness of eye, and lightness of hand for cutting and pre- 

 paring sections, the great amount of general knowledge which a man 

 of science is required to have is of no consequence at all. 



Several amongst your number have asked me to indicate those 

 courses of enquiry which may best be commended to members of 

 such a society as this, and it strikes me that the suggestion which I 

 have just made supplies the answer. It is exactly in that field — 

 the following up of details, tracing out minutiae of structure, in 

 occupying themselves with such questions as are only to be solved by 

 long and patient devotion of time and dexterity, and a thorough 

 knowledge of instrumental manipulation — it is exactly there that 

 men of science find their difficulties, because the amount of time 

 consumed is so great. Take, for example, the application of per- 

 sistent watching to the unravelment of the life history of a vast 

 number of low organisms ; that is a process which has been adopted 

 in respect to certain fungi in order to ascertain whether they are 

 parasites or variations. In such a case the plan pursued is that of 

 taking the spores and watching them step by step, and there is no 

 other way of doing it ; it involves enormous expenditure of time 

 and great instrumental dexterity, but those who can follow it obtain 

 results which are to be attained in no other way. The work of Mr. 

 Dallinger and Dr. Drysdale, for instance, affords us a very remark- 

 able example of this kind of observation : these two gentlemen 

 mounted guard alternately over a microscope for days and days, 

 watched one identical monad through all its stages ; and they 

 succeeded in tracing out its entire life history, and made an epoch 

 in our knowledge of these lowest forms. Now suppose this kind 

 of observation was to be directed to the Infusoria in general, what 

 an opportunity there is for some of you ! Why there is not a single 

 genus or species of which we may say that we know the whole 

 history. The common Paramecium, for instance, is one of the 

 commonest things that exists, yet nobody certainly knows whether 

 it has any other mode of reproduction except by fission. The skill 

 which I have seen displayed here is of immense value in such kind 

 of work, and if only applied to it must very soon bring some good 

 results. The like is true also of the Acineta? ; we know something 

 about them, but nothing like a complete history ; and it is a perfect 

 opprobrium to science that nobody knows what an Amwba is. I do 

 not mean to say that we do not know the things we call by that 

 name when we see them, but that we are unable to say with certainty 

 what are their modes of reproduction, what are their various states, 



