IV PKESIUENT S ADDRESS. 



many members who hold exceptionally high positions in their 

 particular branches of study, it has also others who may profit 

 by such help as is in the power of every practised hand to give 

 them. 



Therefore I purpose devoting my address this evening to 

 some account of my own particular pursuit, much of which is 

 applicable, to a large extent, to other branches of study in 

 which the microscope takes an all-important part — viz., the 

 collecting, growing or cultivation, and examination or display 

 of microscopic aquatic life. So much invaluable information 

 upon the first subject is given in numerous works at hand that 

 I feel I shall have to repeat much that has been said before, 

 and give little which can be called strictly original. 



I have thought it strange that while marine creatures are 

 sought regardless of cost or peril by means of very elaborate 

 and skilfully -contrived appliances, dredging and sounding 

 apparatus, steamers specially fitted out for cruises in dangerous 

 parts of the ocean, zoological stations and expeditions arranged 

 under the auspices of even a British Government, the living 

 multitudes (fishes excepted) which inhabit our rivers, lakes, 

 and ponds should be left to individual and usually very casual 

 and unsystematic research. It is doubtless attributable to this 

 cause, or neglect, that so many of the forms found in this 

 country come to us rather as proofs of the faithful industry of 

 observers in other countries than of our own original work and 

 enterprise. 



It is true that investigations in marine zoology are often 

 associated with other matters of equally great scientific and 

 commercial importance, and that the marvellous fauna of the 

 ocean is vastly more grand and extensive ; but, on the other 

 hand, so many of us are destined to live in inland districts, and 

 so keen is our appetite for an insight into the beginnings of life, 

 that the tiny inhabitants of our ponds and streams should claim 

 a much larger share of our thought than they do, for it is upon 

 them that we have to rely chiefly for our acquaintance with 

 those wondrous works of nature which are the foundation and 



