8 Inaugural Address. 



while they are content to remain themselves obscure, ordinary 

 zoophytes. I fear it would be vain to look for them in the 

 aquariums of our Zoological Gardens, or even in the monster 

 which we hear of as to be seen in Paris, but remember, it is an 

 ideal aquarium which I speak of. Well, these coral workers are 

 gregarious, not solitary. They live and work in company, and 

 they have the happy faculty of eliminating what is useful for their 

 purpose out of the common element in which they exist, and 

 transmuting it by a marvellous process into the beautiful fabric 

 with which we are all familiar. Aye, gentlemen, and it is not only 

 ornaments for the mantelpiece which they produce, or, at best, 

 specimens for the cabinet, but by their patient toil solid rocks are 

 made, and island after island lifts itself as it were by magic out of 

 the waste uninhabitable sea, to become the dwelling place of man 

 and beast. It is marvellous. Without their presence, you have 

 but rocks and water, with them, a populous world springs to life. 



Now, briefly to apply my illustration, what we most want for our 

 Society is a good working staflF of corals. It is true that we must 

 not be hard on the poor anemones. I confess myself to have a 

 strong fellow feeling for them. It is very pleasant to sit at your 

 ease and otiosely imbibe such information as may be brought to 

 you. Besides this they have their right to existence like other 

 creatures, unless they justify Mr. Darwin's theory, and go out in 

 the struggle, and they help to stock the aquarium. 



Our shrimps unquestionably have their use as they skip lightly 

 from subject to subject, and devour a little knowledge here and a 

 little knowledge there, without form or ceremony. They help to 

 stir the water, and keep it brisk and lively. Of still more value is 

 your hermit crab. He does not pretend to originality of research 

 or knowledge. He has no idea of passing off the shell in which 

 he walks about as his own, indeed it has a quaint half incongruous 

 look about it, which would at once be detected by the eye of the 

 naturalist, but he likes to know something about the world in 

 which he moves, and he fastens on a subject on which some good 

 book has been written, and he gets it up thoroughly and makes it 

 his own, and then he writes us an interesting paper upon it, and 

 then, let us hope, having done good service in this shell, he 

 proceeds to migrate to another. 



As to the serpula he is a very provoking creature, so pretty and 

 yet so coy. One wishes he would oftener let us have a sight of 

 him, or, still better, hear his voice. 



But the good industrious coral that works well and works in 

 company, and that finds his materials in the common things that 

 surround him, is the best of members for building up a Society 

 like ours. They give it a local hold, a solid foundation. They 



