44 FIRST GENERAL MEETING. 



The first Congress was held at Paris in 1889, and was worthily 

 presided over by Prof, Mihic Edwards, whom we have the pleasure 

 of seeing here to-day. 



The second Congress was held at Moscow in 1892 under the 

 presidency of Count Kapnist, and under the patronage of His 

 Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Serge. 



The third Congress was at Leyden in 1895 under the presi- 

 dency of Dr Jentink, Director of the Royal Museum, and under 

 the patronage of the Queen Regent. 



Such meetings are of great importance in bringing together 

 those interested in the same Science. It is a great pleasure, and 

 a great advantage to us to meet our foreign Colleagues. Moreover 

 it cannot be doubted that these meetings do much to promote the 

 progress of Science. 



What a blessing it would be for mankind if we could stop the 

 enormous expenditure on engines for the destruction of life and 

 property, and spend the tenth, the hundredth, even the thousandth 

 part, on Scientific progress. 



Few people seem to realise how much Science has done for 

 Man ; and still fewer how much more it would still do, if permitted. 



From a practical point of view, especially as regards our 

 food supplies and the prevention of disease, the future progress 

 of Zoology will doubtless reward us with discoveries of great 

 practical importance. 



More students would probably devote themselves to Science, 

 if it were not so systematically neglected in our Schools : if boys 

 and girls were not given the impression that the field of discovery 

 is well nigh exhausted. 



We, gentlemen, know how far that is from being the case. 

 Much of the land surface of the globe is still unexplored ; the 

 Ocean is almost unknown ; our collections contain thousands of new 

 species waiting to be described ; the life-history of many of our 

 commonest species remains to be investigated, or has only recently 

 been discovered. 



Take for instance the common Eel. Until quite recently its life- 

 history was absolutely unknown. Aristotle pointed out that " Eels 

 were neither male nor female and that their eggs were unknown." 

 This remained true until a year or two ago. No one had ever seen 

 the egg of an Eel, or a young Eel less than 5 centimetres (ij inch) 

 in length. We now know, thanks mainly to the researches of 

 Grassi, that the parent Eels go down to the sea and breed in the 

 depths of the ocean, in water not less than 3000 feet in depth. 

 There they adopt a marriage dress of silver, and their eyes consider- 

 ably enlarge, so as to make the most of the dim light in the ocean 

 depths. Certain small fishes found in the same regions had been 

 regarded as a special family, known as Leptocephali ; these also 

 were never known to breed. It now appears that they are the larvae 

 of Eels : that known as Leptocephalus brevirostris being the young 



