President's Address. 9 



scribes the hall in North Eichmond Street belonging to the 

 Society at that time, and the character of the meetings therein 

 held, with graphic notices of its members. The essay deserves 

 to be printed. 



Zoology, its Rise and Progress. — The remaining part of this 

 address will be occupied in tracing briefly the rise and pro- 

 gress of Zoological Science. 



In the present day, when gTeat unsolved problems are 

 agitating the republic of the science, it may be a relief to 

 glance back on the lives of some of those grand old pioneers 

 who laid the foundation on which the vast superstructure 

 now rests. The sketch must be brief, and therefore imperfect ; 

 but as the aim is retrospection, and not novelty, the imper- 

 fection will be of little importance. 



Until the sixteenth century there are only two names 

 whose writings on Zoology have been preserved to us from 

 ancient times, and who deserve to be held in grateful remem- 

 brance. 



Zoology dates from the time of Aristotle, and as a science 

 lay buried with him for more than eighteen centuries. His 

 " History of Animals " was written at a time when our country, 

 with the greater part of modern Europe, w^as in a state of 

 barbarism, and only emerging out of the stone age. There is 

 not a name in all antiquity that stands more prominently in 

 the foreground for science and learning than that of Aristotle. 

 It has been said that Plato and Aristotle represent all the 

 speculative philosophy and scientific knowledge of ancient 

 Greece, and that whoever is acquainted with their writings 

 knows all that Greece had to teach. 



Plato was the teacher of Aristotle, and the restless and 

 active disposition of the pupil w^as characterised by the master 

 in the well-known epithet, " Aristotle is the mind of my 

 school." 



The rise of Zoology as a science dates from the time when 

 Aristotle directed his attention to the animal kingdom, and 

 it is chiefly in his capacity as the historian and interpreter of 

 nature, that he claims our allegiance, gratitude, and admira- 

 tion. 



VOL. IV. B 



