[PRINCE] BIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF CANADIAN WATERS 73 
Pioneer Biological Work in Canada. 
But the investigation-of waters so vast as those of Canada might 
well appal even the most stout-hearted of the devotees of science. Diffi- 
culties exist, however, not to deter but to inspire effort and, looking back 
over the past history of biological progress in Canada, one may at times 
feel disappointed at the meagre efforts and sparse results often achieved 
but rightly estimated we may feel justifiably proud of the pioneers who 
worked alone and unappreciated, and under many disadvantages, and 
yet gathered such a store of scientific knowledge as we in Canada possess 
to-day. May the prudens questio which stimulated them stir us, their 
unworthy successors! 
When a boy I saw much of the venerable and rightly venerated 
British zoologist, the Rev. Thomas Flincks, whose monographs on 
hydroid and polyzoan zoology are an imperishable element in the fabric 
of marine biology, and I well remember the glow of delight with which 
he received some bottles of specimens after their long and perilous 
voyage from Canada, which then seemed to Englishmen as distant as 
Mars. That was nearly 40 years ago, and zealous observers were at work 
in our land then, whose specimens I saw, as later in my scientific career, 
T saw bottles of Annelids sent to Dr. McIntosh* by Dr. Whiteaves 
after his early dredgings in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Mr. Hincks like 
his Canadian confrères was a solitary worker—“ I am going for a holi- 
day, get me my boots from Carley, the shoemaker,” he said one day to 
his servant. The servant found to his amazement that the parcel con- 
taining Mr. Hincks’ pair of boots measured 36 inches by 12, and might 
have been a young calf wrapped up in paper. The holiday was to be 
spent at Tenby or Torquay or some favourite resort for marine zoolo- 
gists, and the boots were huge sea boots for wading in tidal pools or, 
working on a fishing boat amidst dredges and nets. 
Northern and Southern Species in the Gulf Waters. 
European naturalists were under the impression that the fauna of 
the shores of Canada, at least the Atlantic waters, was really of a truly 
Boreal character: but, over an extent of ten thousand miles of coast on 
the east and seven thousand on the west, a variety of faunas might be 

11 feel bound to mention that Professor McIntosh, in a recent letter, 
informs me of the approaching completion of the great Monograph of the 
British Annelids, with its wonderful series of superb coloured plates, the 
work of Professor McIntosh’s lamented sister, the late Mrs. Roberta 
Giinther. This splendid and monumental work, in course of publication for 
over thirty years by the Ray Society of London, is an honour to that famous 
Society, and the magnum opus of the greatest of living marine biologists. 
