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delicate ground in giving expression to these sentiments ; 
but as this was the first opportunity he had had, he felt it 
his duty to express publicly the strong conviction which he 
entertained on this subject. 
Professor HUXLEY begged leave to second the vote of 
thanks which had been so well moved by his friend 
Mr. Wilmot. Unfortunately, he had not had an oppor- 
tunity of seeing Sir James Maitland’s establishment at 
Howietown, but he had frequently been favoured by 
reading and hearing what he had done, and thus had the 
means of knowing not only the nature of his operations, 
but what was to his mind the singularly precise and 
accurate scientific spirit which he had brought to his work, 
and it was the secret of the very remarkable success he has 
obtained. In this matter, as in all biological questions, the 
secret of success lay in attention to minute details, and 
that was really the moral of the Paper. You must, in the 
first place, be able to comprehend precisely—which very 
few people did—the exceeding complexity of natural 
conditions, and then you must know how to carry into 
practice all the precautions necessary to meet the variation 
in those conditions. He could not recommend anyone who 
was endeavouring to acquaint himself with natural history 
to take up a more useful and valuable study than that of 
the manner in which Sir James Maitland had carried out 
his operations with regard to fish culture. He dwelt upon 
this point the more because, since the time—some forty 
years ago—when M. Coste first popularised the notion of 
fish culture, the idea became prevalent that you only had 
to carry out artificial impregnation, or the collection of 
spat in the case of Oysters, and the thing was done. He 
need not say what disappointment those who first experi- 
mented in the matter of Oyster culture were destined to 
