XIV PRKSIDKNT S ADHRESS. 



Next to the desirability of successful search for microscopic 

 fresh- water life comes the natural wish to be able to keep it, 

 and, if I may use the word, cultivate it, and here let me put in 

 an earnest plea for an extensive adoption of means to this end. 



Like all lovers of this study, I have felt saddened to see the 

 beautiful creatures, which I have perhaps been many miles to 

 get. and which have afforded so much delight to myself and 

 my friends, gradually dwindling and dying in the little glass 

 bottles or, to them, fatal prisons in which I had placed them, 

 and like others, too, have made many attempts to keep them in 

 all the charming freshness of active life, as I fouiid them in their 

 natural habitats, in indoor aquaria. 



Indeed it is a fact, as proved by my study of Dendrosoma 

 alone, that if these things can by any means be kept in active 

 life, it only needs careful observation to unfold their history 

 with all its interest and absorbing attractiveness. 



I have not wondered that many naturalists have from tnne 

 to time spoken in high satisfaction of their success in maintaining 

 and increasing theii- stock of such things as Melicerta and even 

 Volvox, with other organisms of like interest, and am free to 

 confess that my own indoor aquaria have assumed a very 

 abnormal, not to say obstructive, growth, often proving success- 

 ful, however, far beyond my expectation. But I have found 

 that, with all ordinary care, the creatures and plants too ore 

 stimulated into such rapid changes that sooner or later they 

 come to grief, if I may use that expressive sporting phrase, and 

 that one needs to begin over and over again. 



Now I was under considerable doubt as to whether a small 

 pond constructed in my garden would be sufficiently successful 

 to repay the somewhat heavy cost; whether the inevitable town 

 surroundings of bricks and mortar, and the accompanying smoky 

 and often dusty atmosphere would not overcome anything I 

 might do in providing other more favourable conditions for the 

 existence of these delicate organisms, and I am pleased, there- 

 foi-e, to be able to say that the plan has answered admirably, 

 and that, in addition to the microscope and the complement of 



