XX Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



Wherever opportunity offered, full anatomical details are 

 given, as well as zoological characters. Indeed, it is hard 

 to decide whether anatomists or systematists will be more 

 helped by these publications. Embryological work is natur- 

 ally scanty, but Professor W. K. Parker was enabled to 

 make out the development of a type of Chelonia, wliich was 

 previously but very imperfectly known. It is interesting to 

 note that he refers to the Leathery Turtle {SpUargis coriacea), 

 which is occasionally to be met with in our Melbourne Fish 

 Market, as the living form which best retains the indications 

 of its ancestry. 



The voyage lasted from 1873 to 1876. The first Keport 

 appeared in 1880, and the work is just completed. Eminent 

 foreign, as well as British, sclents were invited to assist, and 

 one result has been to show that English and American 

 biologists are able to produce work which in magnitude, in 

 thoroughness, and in artistic beauty, can compare favourably 

 with that of any other workers in the world. 



The naturalists who accompanied the Expedition were Sir 

 Wyville Thomson, Mr. Moseley, Dr. Willemoes Suhm, and 

 Mr. John Murray. The credit of the general direction of the 

 zoological work belongs to Sir Wyville Thomson. We have 

 to regret the early death of Dr. Willemoes Suhm. Just as the 

 voyage in the Beagle exercised great influence in shaping 

 Charles Darwin's powers, so to that of the Challenger is due 

 that opportunity of expansion was given to Mr. (since Prof) 

 Moseley and Mr. John Murray. So well-equipped were the 

 naturalists, and so judicious and careful was their work, that 

 1 believe one may say with strict accuracy, that no material 

 which was acquired was lost to science. 



Besides adding vast numbers of new species to our lists, 

 the Challenger gained for the world nearly all that is known 

 of the fauna of the ocean basins, and the form under which 

 life is maintained under the singular conditions of abyssal 

 existence. The relations of the abyssal fauna to light, the 

 enormous development or the abortion of the eye, the 

 existence of remarkable phosphorescent organs, consti- 



