August 25, 192 1] 



NATURE 



819 



ticularly active and fortunate in their arrange- 

 ments. These excursions are necessarily limited 

 in number, and only those really interested are 

 expected to join them. The arrangements for 

 these are in the hands of the respective sectional 

 secretaries. There are in addition eighteen excur- 

 sions open to all members. Information regard- 

 ing these is given in the local programme, and 

 further details can be obtained at the excursions 

 '■' counter in the reception room. The Excursions 

 Committee has succeeded in making arrangements 

 for members, up to the number of two hundred, to 

 visit Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, and the Tros- 

 sachs by motor charabanc and boat, and for a 

 further two hundred to visit the Scott country — 

 Melrose, Dryburgh, Abbotsford, and the \'alley of 

 the Tweed — by motor coach. Early application 

 for these excursions is desirable. It is hoped that 

 full advantage will be taken of arrangements which 

 have been made for small parties, not exceeding 

 fifty in each group, to visit Old Edinburgh under 

 the guidance of experts, each visit to extend over 

 two afternoons. Members who will arrive in 

 Edinburgh on Tuesday or early on Wednesday, 

 and are interested in the Old Town, are advised 



to join one of the four parties which will set out 

 on the Wednesday afternoon at 2.30. These will 

 complete the inspection of the Old Town on the 

 Thursday afternoon. Another party will start on 

 Thursday afternoon and finish on Friday after- 

 noon, and a third party will begin on Monday- 

 afternoon and finish on Tuesday afternoon. 



There is to be a special graduation ceremonial 

 in the McEwan Hall on Tuesday, September 13, 

 at 3 p.m., at which honorary degrees in the 

 faculty of law will be conferred. Members of the 

 Association who propose to attend the ceremonial 

 in academic dress are desired to hand in their 

 names at the general inquiries counter in the re- 

 ception room on or before the morning of Monday, 

 September 12. The secretary of the University 

 has kindly arranged to reserve seats for them and 

 to include them in the academic procession. 



Members who are golfers will be glad to hear 

 that several of the well-known Edinburgh clubs 

 have been good enough to intimate that a number 

 of members of the .Association will be made 

 honorary members of the clubs foir the period of 

 the meeting. The local secretaries will be pleased 

 to give particulars. 



Obit 



Prof. Edmond Perkier. 



PROF. JEAN OCTAVE EDMOND PERKIER, 

 the announcement of whose death ap- 

 peared in Nature for August 4, p. 721, 

 had been, for longer than many of us can 

 remember, one of the most distinguished of con- 

 temporary French zoologists. Born in 1844 at 

 Tulle (Correze), he entered the Ecole Normale 

 Superieure in 1864, and for some years devoted 

 himself to mathematical and physical studies ; but 

 he was a born naturalist, and the call of the 

 natural sciences was too clear to be resisted. He 

 entered the service of the Museum' of Natural 

 History in Paris in 1868 as "aide-naturaliste," and 

 eight years later he became a professor in that 

 institution. On the death of Prof. A. Milne- 

 Edwards in 1900, Perrier was appointed director 

 of the museum, a position which he held until 

 January of last year, when he retired with the 

 title of honorary director. He died in his official 

 residence at the museum on July 31 last. 



Prof. Perrier 's published writings cover a wide 

 range of subjects. His own researches — morpho- 

 logical, taxonomic, and faunistic — deal mainly 

 with various groups of invertebrates, and are re- 

 corded in a long series of memoirs, many of which 

 are of fundamental importance. His monograph 

 on the structure of earthworms (1874) is fre- 

 quently quoted by Darwin, who refers to it as 

 " M. Perrier's admirable memoir." His researches 

 on echinoderms are well known, and we need 

 do no more than mention his memoirs on the 

 collections of the Travailleur and Talisman, the 

 Blake, and other expeditions, and his detailed 

 study of the structure and dev-elopment of 

 Antedon. He was also the author of a 

 considerable number of volumes of more 

 NO. 270d. VOL. 107] 



uary. 



I general scope, one of the best known being" 

 " La Philosophic zoologique avant Darwin '* 

 (1884), in which he emphasised the important part 

 taken by French thinkers in the development of 

 biological theory. " Les Explorations sous- 

 marines " {1886) was based largely on the results 

 of the Travailleur and Talisman expeditions in the 

 Atlantic, in which he had taken part. " La Tachy- 

 genese, ou acceleration embryologique " (in col- 

 laboration with Prof. Ch. Gravier, 1902), is an 

 interesting and suggestive attempt at a synthesis 

 of the facts of embryology. In his monumental 

 "Traite de Zoologie," of which six fascicles have 

 appeared since 1892 (a final part was in manu- 

 script at the time of his death), he attempted a 

 task which is now, perhaps, beyond the powers 

 of any single man. His last published work, " La 

 Terre avant I'Histoire" (1920), a general review 

 of the origin and evolution of the living world, is 

 distinguished no less by the author's encyclopaedic 

 knowledge than by the lucidity and charm of his 

 style. 



A list of Prof. Perrier's academic and other 

 honours would be a lengthy one. He was elected a 

 member of the Academic des Sciences in 1892 ; he 

 was also a member of the Academic de Medecine, 

 and of many foreign academies and learned 

 societies, including the Linnean and Zoological 

 Societies of London. The distinction of his 

 literary style gained for him the coveted honour 

 of admission to the " Societe des Gens de Lettres,"^ 

 of which he was one of the few scientific members. 

 He was one of the founders of the International 

 Congress of Zoology, and succeeded Prof. A. 

 Milne-Edwards as chairman of the permanent 

 committee. 



Of Prof. Perrier's personal qualities, a distin- 



