34 PEOCKEDINGS 01' THK 



Mr. Druery and Prof. Bower, of that curious abnormal mode of 

 reproduction which, has been termed ' apospory.' The Muscineae 

 are treated of more particularly by Mr. Mitten, many of whose 

 contributions, though by no means all, belong to this period. In 

 the department of Pungology I may cite the last of Bei^keley's own 

 papers, such as that on the Fungi of the ' Challenger ' Expedition, 

 and others written by him in collaboration with Mr. Eroome and 

 Dr. Cooke ; as also the more recent contributions of Dr. Barclaj", of 

 Mr. Plowright, and of Mr. Massee. In systematic Lichenology the 

 work of Leighton and of Lindsay has been carried on by the Rev. 

 Mr. Crombie and Dr. Stirton ; whilst light has been thrown on the 

 structure of these strange composite organisms by the investigation 

 of the remarkable epiphyllous forms described by Dr. D. Cunning- 

 ham under the name of Mycoidea parasitica and by Prof. Marshall 

 Ward under that of Strigula complanata. The chief work in 

 descriptive Algology has been done by Dickie, and, with special 

 reference to freshwater Algte, by Messrs. W. and G. West. We 

 are indebted to Mr, George Murray, Miss Barton, and others for 

 communications relating to the morphology and minute structure of 

 Algse ; but most of all to our distinguished Foreign Member, Graf 

 Hermann zu Solms-Laubach, Professor of Botany in the University 

 of Strassburg, who, reviving a primitive and excellent custom 

 u ifortunately long fallen into abeyance, has recently (1895) con- 

 tributed to our "Transactions" a masterly Monograph of the 

 Acetabulariese. The anatomy and the physiology of plants, as I 

 have already pointed out, have never been strong points with us; 

 but recent anatomical papers, such as those of Mr. Worsdell and 

 Mr. Gwynne-Yaughan, and the physiological work of Mr. F. 

 Darwin, together with papers of a more bionomical character, such 

 as those contributed by Lord Avebury, Mr. Spencer Moore, the 

 Eev. G. Henslow, and Mr. A. W. Bennett, go far to remove this 

 reproach. Lord Avebury, by the way, is not the only Fellow of 

 this Society who has turned from zoological to botanical work ; for 

 have we not a paper on the Gentians by Huxley (Journ. xxiv.), who 

 was attracted to the study of the group during a holiday in the high 

 Alps? 



Great as has been the botanical activity of the Society in recent 

 years, it has been equalled, if not excelled, by the zoological. As 

 regards systematic Zoology, the period opens with Huxley's weighty 

 paper ' On the Classification of the Animal Kingdom ' (Journ. xii., 

 1876), in which he points out the futilitj' of systems based upon 

 phylogenetic speculations, which not only 'are at present, for the 

 most part, incapable of being submitted to any objective test, but 

 are likely long to remain in that condition ' : and urges that 

 * taxonomy should be a precise and logical arrangement of verifiable 

 facts ' : sound doctrine which needs to be preached even more 

 faithfully now than five-and- twenty years ago. There is a great 

 array of systematic papers, among which I will only mention those 

 of older date, such as that of Allman on Hydroida ; those of Martin 

 Duncan on Corals; Davidson's Monograph of recent Brachiopoda ; 



