THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 181 



for many years to the study of one particular group, the Oribatidce^ 

 and yet from observations I have heard from him, here and else- 

 where, it is quite clear that he has obtained a very large amount 

 of general biological information, which gives him an interest in 

 knowing what is going on in other departments ; but it is the 

 special study of the Oribatidce which has gained for Mr. Michael 

 great credit amongst naturalists, and which has added very con- 

 siderably to our knowledge of an extremely curious and interesting 

 group. 



Now with regard to the communications which have been made 

 during the present year, I would just mention two in especial ; one 

 the communication made to us by Mr. Buff ham, on the con- 

 jugation of Rhabdonema. Those who were present on the night on 

 which that communication was made will remember that I then 

 made some remarks upon it, which I need not now repeat. I 

 would only say at the present time that the peculiar phenomenon 

 which Mr. Buffham believes to have taken place — he has not 

 actually observed it, remember — is the most singular thing that 

 we know, if it does occur as he believes, and I do hope that he, or 

 some one else, will follow up those observations, and will be able 

 to produce further evidence that the interpretation he has put 

 upon them is the correct one. Everyone who is familiar with any 

 department of natural history study will know that you may see a 

 thing with the ordinary eyes, but, as it were, you have to see it with 

 the mental eye also, and that you may be perfectly correct in describ- 

 ing what you see if you merely describe it or draw it, and yet you 

 may be quite wrong in the interpretation you put upon it. Now I 

 may refer to myself as a " dreadful example." When I brought 

 out my Memoir on the " Structure of Shells," now about 40 years 

 ago, nobody doubted at all that I was correct in the interpretation 

 which I put upon what I saw. The plates of that memoir, pub- 

 lished in the British Association's Proceedings for 1841 — of which, 

 if there is not a copy in the library, I shall be happy to give a 

 copy — for lately these old Proceedings have been given away, as it 

 were, by the Council of the British Association, and I secured a 

 few copies of the two volumes containing those memoirs. There 

 are 20 plates in the first, and 20, I think, in the second, published 

 in 1817. There is not a single thing in those plates which I can- 

 not show ; they were drawn by the best microscopical draughts- 

 man of the time — Mr. Leonard ; but the interpretation I put upon 



