J04 ^h£ Irish Nahiralist. November, 



local members— 1,447 in 1874, 952 in 1902. Five hundred less local people 

 attend the British Association at the expiration of twenty-eig-ht years, 

 though the population of the city has more than doubled itself in that time. 

 It is a curious comment on the progress of Belfast. 



Grants for Scientific Purposes. 



Out of ;^96o voted by the General Committee for scientific investigation 

 only one sum of ;i^40 comes to Ireland — the only grant, so far as we are 

 aware, that was applied for by Irish men of science. This sum is voted to the 

 committee who are investigating our cave-deposits under the chairmanship 

 of Dr. Scharff. An abstract of the committee's report on their work last 

 year appears on a former page. 



Belfast Initiations. 



Belfast has done its share in building up those adjuncts of the Asso- 

 ciation's meetings which tend to the convenience and pleasure of the 

 member, and are now taken as matters of course. Thus, the daily 

 Journal, without which members nowadays would be as lost sheep, was first 

 suggested by the late Robert Patterson, F.R.S., at the Belfast meeting of 

 1852, When the Association revisited Belfast in 1874, the local committee 

 produced a novelty in the B.N.F.C. '* Guide to Belfast." Like the Journal, 

 the Hand-book is now a necessary adjunct of the Association's meetings. 

 The novelties supplied by Belfast to the recent meeting were the series of 

 short afternoon excursions to places of interest, and the free tramway pass 

 Both were greatly appreciated. 



THE HUMOROUS SIDE. 



Professor Poulton, in opening the discussion on natural selection and 

 mimicry in Section D gave an excellent practical illustration of the 

 rapidity with which response of the organism to its environment may take 

 place. The learned speaker had not yet been a week amid Hibernian 

 surroundings when, in discussing the relative numbers oi mimickers and 

 mimicked in a particular case, he stated that "only one out of every 

 thousand ants was a spider." This meeting was, indeed, full of fun, 

 and might have been quoted by Mr. Sydney Hartland as a modern instance 

 of the ancient Irish Bull-feast. 



Professor Dendy's description, in moving a vote of thanks to Professor 

 Howes, President o^ Section D, of that eminent zoologist as "an uni- 

 cellular association for the advancement oi biology," was another illustra- 

 tration of the rapid hibernicising of a visitor — even though he hail from the 

 Antipodes. In returning thanks the President stoutly denied that he was 

 "unicellular," even though he might be a " multinucleate syncytium,'" 



