President's Address. 13 



the sixteenth century, deserve to be held in rememlDrance, and 

 are entitled to our gratitude and esteem. It was by their 

 labour and exertion that Xatural History was enabled to 

 emerge from the obscurity in which it was sunk, in common 

 with every department of science, throughout the unillumined 

 ages. After a long night of darkness the light of science had 

 again sprang up, and was now above the horizon. The 

 inductive method, so clearly indicated by Aristotle, was 

 adopted and rigidly enforced in the waitings of Bacon ; and 

 it was by its application that Galileo, Kepler, and Newton 

 were enabled to achieve their immortal discoveries in Physical 

 Science. 



Men now appeared in various countries making observa- 

 tions for themselves in the Natural Sciences, collecting, 

 appropriating, and verifying the knowledge which had been 

 handed down in the writings of ancient authors. Facts were 

 no longer tried by traditional authority, but tradition was 

 subjected to the close scrutiny of newly observed facts. 



Naturalists found that, so far from the Book of Nature 

 being exhausted by the labour of their predecessors, Natural 

 History was fuU to overflowing of rich and varied interest ; 

 and that notwithstanding the united efforts of human research 

 for thousands of years, there was not a single department 

 whose history could be said to be complete. 



The first British zoological work appeared in 1634, under 

 the title of " Theatrum Insectorum^' by Dr Mouffet, physician 

 to the Earl of Pembroke. The next original work was pub- 

 lished in the year 1667, entitled, " Pinax Rerum Naturalium 

 Brittanicariiml' by Dr Christopher Merrett, and is deserving 

 of notice as the first of our local faunas and floras, being 

 entirely devoted to British plants and animals. 



It was at this time that the illustrious names of Willoughby, 

 Eay, Lister, and Sibbald, began to spread the fame of Great 

 Britain. The vertebrate animals occupied the attention of 

 Ptay and Willoughby. The Cetacea captured in our seas, or 

 thrown on our shores, were examined and described by Sib- 

 bald, and the results published in his " Phalainologia Nova " 

 (Edin. 1692). The Mollusca were carefully investigated by 

 Martin Lister, and great service rendered to this branch of 



