LINNBAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 21 



Vertebrate Morphology, as a science, is mainly the result of the 

 labours of Gegenbaur and of his school. 



Michael Woronin was a private gentleman of means and 

 position who devoted his time and his energy to botanical research. 

 Inasmuch as he studied under Cienkovski at St. Petersburg, under 

 De Eary at Freiburg-i.-B., and under Thuret at xlntibes, it is not 

 surprising that he should have chosen the Fungi and the Algae as 

 the subjects of his investigations. Having found his congenial 

 work, he pursued it with unswerving tenacity of purpose, producing 

 results that very materially contributed to the remarkable develop- 

 ment of knowledge concerning the Thallophyta which characterised 

 the botanical progress of the latter part of the nineteenth century. 



We begau the Session with two vacancies in our list of Foreign 

 Members, so that there have been four to fill up, though there has 

 only been opportunity to make three elections ; one vacancy 

 remains over to next Session. The choice of the Society has fallen 

 upon Dr. Hugo de Vries, Professor of Botany iu the University of 

 Amsterdam ; upon M. Eugene Louis Bouvier, Professor at the 

 Natural History Museum, Paris ; and upon Dr. Carl Chun, 

 Professor of Zoology in the University of Leipsic. Of Prof. 

 De Yries I would say that although he is best known by his recent 

 researches on variation and heredity, based upon the re- 

 introduction of the experimental method, which are being 

 embodied in his great work the ' Mutations-theorie,' he had, at an 

 earlier period, earned a high reputation as a plant-physiologist. 

 Trained in the school of Julius von Sachs, when that great master 

 was in the plenitude of his remarkable powers, Prof, de Vries 

 proved himself to be one of its most distinguished pupils. 

 Beginning with the study of the growth of plants, and more 

 especially of growth-curvatures, he Avas led on, whilst seeking the 

 explanation of these phenomena, to recognise that they are 

 ultimately due to variations in the turgidity of the growing cells ; 

 and then to the investigation of the mechanics of the individual 

 growing cell, a subject that he made peculiarly his own. Prof. 

 Bouvier's well-established reputation as a zoologist, and more 

 particularly as a malacologist, rests upon a series of highly finished 

 systematic memoirs, written to some ext-ent in collaboration with 

 Alphonse Milne-Edwards, a former Foreign Member of this 

 Society, uj)on material resulting from various deep-sea exploring 

 expeditions, including that of the American vessel the 'Biake' 

 under Agassiz, those of the Prince of Monaco in the yachts 

 ' Hirondelle ' and ' Princesse Alice,' and those of the French 

 Grovernment in the ' Travailleur' and the • Talisman.' Nor n)ust 

 I omit to mention his contributions to our knowledge of that still 

 enigmatical animal known as Peripatus. Professor Chun, well- 

 known in connection with the ' Bibliotheca Zoologica,' has made 

 his mark in marine research. The success of his eai'lier labours in 

 this direction led to his being selected as the leader of the German 

 deep-sea expedition, effectively carried out in the voyage of the 

 ' Valdivia ' during the years 1898-0. His main zoological work 



