1897] NOTES AND COMMENTS 363 
THE INTERNATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL CONGRESS, 1898 
THE meeting of the General Committee appointed to arrange for the 
next meeting of the International Zoological Congress was marked 
by an unfortunate lack of union. One well-known zoologist described 
it as the most turbulent meeting he had ever attended. The Congress 
is to meet in England next August, and the original arrangement was 
that it should be held in London, which, for various reasons, has now 
been altered to Cambridge. The success of a similar Congress in 
America in 1891 was seriously affected by a change in the place of 
meeting, which led to the abstention of a great number of American 
men of science, who objected to the alteration. Cambridge does not 
now occupy the position in the English zoological world which it did 
in the days of F. M. Balfour. There are no doubt strong reasons 
for the selection of Cambridge, although the town is not central. 
But remembering the consequences of the change of locality of the 
American Congress in 1891, the advocates of Cambridge might have 
done their best to conciliate provincial representatives. Their attitude 
was decidedly the reverse. When, for example, Colonel Wardlaw 
Ramsay proposed that in order to secure one Scottish member on 
the executive, Sir William Turner should be elected a vice-president, 
Professor Newton formed the minority of one who voted against it. 
Professor Poulton, also-anxious to make the committee more repre- 
sentative, proposed that the presidents of the Linnean and Entomo- 
logical Societies should be ex officio vice-presidents, which secured at 
once the warm support of the meeting, The chairman, however, 
expressed himself confident that Mr Poulton, on thinking the 
question over, would see the advisability of withdrawing his resolu- 
tion and allowing the executive committee to select itself the 
additions to its number. But Mr Poulton remarked that he 
did not see the advisability of his withdrawing his resolution, and 
thought it much better not to trust the executive committee to make 
the additions recommended. The resolution was carried by an over- 
whelming majority. So the cut and dried plans of those who had 
arranged the agenda were not accepted quite as they stood. A 
member who proposed one of the official resolutions read it out as 
‘“‘ the resolution I have been ‘instructed’ to propose ;” and then re- 
commended it to the meeting by one hostile criticism. Dr Murie 
proposed that the executive committee should be composed of an 
equal number of members from England, Ireland and Scotland, a re- 
markable suggestion that only fell non-seconded because the zoologist 
who attempted the feat could not complete his sentence until the 
meeting was well advanced in the consideration of the next business. 
A few proposals of this sort, by claim for zoological independence for 
Wales and the Manxmen, kept the meeting merry. But it seems 
