77 



On Utilising OUR Excursions. By K. Braithwaite, M.D.,F.L.S. 



(Read May 22nd, 1868.; 



About two months ago, Mr. Draper favoured us with some very 

 pertinent observations on the work to be carried out by the micros- 

 cope, and it is with the hope of impressing these views on the 

 members taking part in the excursions that I venture to offer a few 

 remarks. 



On the 4th of this month I had the pleasure of meeting some 

 thirty gentlemen at Hampstead, all duly provided with the arma- 

 mentaria required for capturing the inhabitants of the various pools ; 

 the energy displayed in their application being quickly evident by 

 an extensive array of bottles crowded with objects of various 

 kinds — larvaB, crustaceans, rotifers, diatoms, desmids, and conferva. 

 Now these operations have been in progress for a considerable 

 period of time, and so far as I can call to mind, we have heard 

 nothing of their results : hence I conclude that after affording 

 amusement for a few evenings to the collectors and their friends, 

 the specimens have been thrown aside and forgotten. 



May I suggest, however, that it is not by the cursory examina- 

 tion of a great accumulation of specimens that useful results are 

 obtained, but rather by continued investigation of the structure and 

 transformations of a single species or family, that we unfold its life 

 history. One establishes facts on a scientific basis, the other leads 

 to a dilettanti spirit of obsei-vation which can yield no profitable 

 return. 



I would ask, then, every worker to find out his hobby, and take 

 every opportunity of trotting it out at our monthly meetings, for I 

 am assured that when he does so it will be not only for the enjoy- 

 ment of the members at large, but his own edification as well. 



Again let me deprecate the notion that it is advisable to run 

 after varieties, for how many common things yet await elucidation ? 

 How many members present are acquainted with the larva of the 

 house fly ? Or, to take those very collecting bottles I spoke of, in 

 which the larva and pupa of the gnat were so conspicuous, one 

 breathing by its head, the other by the tail, and both so different 

 from the perfect insect that I am sure its biography might be made 

 almost as interesting as that of the kindred Corethra jjlumicornis 

 has recently been by Professor Rymer Jones. 



