PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Ixxvii. 



with great regret that I record the loss by death of some of our 

 members, amongst whom I may specially mention Mr. J. K. D. 

 Wingfield Digby, Mr. W. Ralph Bankes, Mr. Oliver Farrer, and 

 Dr. Lush. The two first will be remembered by many of us as 

 our kind and hospitable hosts, Mr. Digby on more than one 

 occasion ; and those who were present at Sherborne last July will 

 specially regret that he should have been for so short a time 

 spared to us. Mr. Oliver Farrer frequently attended our 

 meetings, and was a favourite with everyone who knew him. 

 Dr. Lush was rarely able to join us, owing to the careful 

 attention which he always gave to his medical duties, but was 

 well known to many of us. 



The past year has been fraught with changes in the ideas of 

 scientific men regarding the constitution of the things around 

 them. A short time ago it had been supposed that at least the 

 fundamental theories of matter were not likely to be again 

 disturbed ; but both in the organic and inorganic kingdoms 

 recent discoveries have led to the belief that we shall have again 

 to go through processes of upheaval akin to that caused by 

 Darwin's "Origin of Species" or the discovery of the electric 

 telegraph. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Some years ago Mr. W. Bateson dealt the first blow to 

 Darwinism by pointing out the frequency of cases of discon- 

 tinuous variation and the importance of the laws enunciated by 

 Mendel in 1864, in accounting for many of the phenomena 

 which occur in the breeding of animals and plants, and are not 

 apparently explainable by the Darwinian hypothesis. Many 

 others have followed in his line of research, and at the British 

 Association meeting at Cambridge last September there was 

 little work done in the zoological section that did not bear 

 directly or indirectly on this new or revived theory of heredity. 

 There are, of course, difficulties, the first of which is clearly to 

 understand the subject, the language used in its study being so 



