6o6 



NATURE 



[October 22, 1896 



The report on the " Index generuni et specierum aninialium" 

 was presented by Mr. K. A. Bather. This index is being com- 

 piled by Mr. C. D. Sherborn, who has already been occupied 

 lor five years on the work, and has registered over 135,000 

 s|)ecies. A small grant was asked for in order that this im- 

 portant work might be more quickly proceeded with. Mr. 

 Bather quoted cases that had occurred in his own individual 

 experience showing the importance of the work being carried 

 on by Mr. .Sherborn, and the Rev. T. R. R. Stebbing agreed 

 that for systeniatists a complete index would be of the greatest 

 assistance, and was becoming year by year more indispensable. 

 The following reports were also submitted : — " On the Coccidx 

 of Ceylon," " On the transniis.sion of specimens by post," and 

 " On zoological bibliography and publication." 



Saturday, September 19. — The report and discussion on the 

 migration of birds, presented by Mr. John Cordeaux, occupied 

 the whole of the morning, and attracted the largest meeting of 

 the Section. The report, prepared by Mr. W. Eagle Clarke, 

 of the .Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh, is a digest of the 

 results obtained concerning the migration of birds as observed 

 at lighthouses and lightships of the British Islands during the 

 years 1880-1887 inclusive. The contents of the report had 

 reference only to the facts obtained by the Committee, and its 

 object was not to solve probleins connected with the causes of 

 the phenomena, the evolution of the migratory instinct, or other 

 purely theoretical aspects of the general subject. The digest 

 having been made from at least one hundred thousand records, it 

 was claimed that a .sufficient basis had been obtained on which a 

 sound and proper conception of many of the phenomena of the 

 migration of British birds could be based. The migration was 

 treated by Mr. Clarke under the three heads of Geographical, 

 Seasonal, and Meteorological, and a very valuable collection of 

 facts is detailed under each section. Prof. A. Newton opened 

 the discussion by pointing out that Mr. Clarke's labours were not 

 by any means at an end, it being his intention to work out the 

 migration of each species of British bird in as much detail as 

 his data allowed. He (Prof. Newton) could wish that their 

 observations were even more numerous, as they were still very 

 far indeed from having exhausted the facts. Rev. Canon 

 Tristram gave the results of some personal observations tending 

 to show that during the day the birds flew nearer the surface 

 and were guided by sight, whilst flying at a higher altitude 

 during night migrations, when the difficulties of direction were 

 evidently greater. Mr. R. M. Barrington did not think that 

 the wind had much influence on migration. Dr. Hewetson and 

 the Rev. E. P. Knubley also took ]»rt in the discussion. 



Monday, September 21. — The morning was occupied, in con- 

 junction with Section I, in hearing Dr. Gaskell's presidential 

 address on the ancestry of the vertebrates, the di.scussion on the 

 latter, requested by Dr. Gaskell, but unusual, taking place in 

 the afternoon. Prof. W. Y. R. Weldon, after criticising several 

 special points in Dr. Gaskell's address, said that the great 

 difficulty was the substitution of one alimentary canal for 

 another. If this had been done in the way that had been 

 suggested, they would have expected that vertebrate ontogeny 

 would show some evidence of it ; but in no vertebrate was the 

 pharynx formed by the coalescence in the mid-ventral line of a 

 series of buds representing arachnid appendages. He was also 

 not all impressed by the so-called thyroid of the Scorpion. It 

 was easy to find such clusters of cells in many animals. Prof. 

 C. S. Minot could not follow Dr. Gaskell with regard to the 

 central nervous system. The formation of a tube was altogether 

 secondary, and the central nervous system must be described as 

 being originally solid. Further, the origin of both the epithe- 

 lium lining the neural canal, and the surrounding nervous 

 material, was the same, and this would not be the case if Dr. 

 Gaskell's hypothesis were correct. He therefore differed from 

 Prof. Weldon, who had seen no special difficulty in this part of 

 Dr. Gaskell's address. Mr. E. W. McBride pointed out that if 

 the vertebrate alimentary canal was phylogenetically more 

 recent than its nervous system, ontogeny would of necessity 

 bear out Dr. Gaskell's conclu.sions. This, however, it did not 

 do. The alimentary canal was always formed first, and the 

 nervous system afterwards. Mr. McBride further, in maintain- 

 ing that the invertebrate and vertebrate alimentary canals were 

 homologous, stated that in the Decapod I.iici/er, in which 

 segmentation was not afi'ected by yolk, the formation of the 

 iilimentary canal was essentially the same as in vertebrates. He 

 maintained that this objection was absolutely fatal to Dr. 

 Gaskell's theory. Mr. Walter Garstang said that two alternative 



NO. 1408, VOL. 54] 



theories of vertebrate ancestry had been mentioned by Dr. 

 Gaskell, but there was also another which retjuired respectful 

 consideration. That was that the vertebrate nervous system had 

 been formed by the coalescence of lateral cords. He maintained 

 that there was considerable evidence in fovour of this. Mr. W. 

 E. Hoyle thought that Dr. Gaskell had been misled by the 

 superficial resemblances of adults, and had not attached enough 

 importance to the early stages. Mr. F. A. Bather stated that 

 pakvontology afforded no evidence for Dr. Gaskell's theory. It 

 was very extraordinary, if the vertebrates had been preceded by 

 a series of L/mu/iis-Vike animals having a skeleton of the most 

 imperishable substance known, that absolutely no traces should 

 have been left of these animals in the fossiliferous rocks. Dr. 

 H. Gadow, Prof. A. M. Paterson, and Prof. 8. J. Hickson, 

 also took part in the dLscu^ision. 



As having some bearing on the above discussion. Dr. R. II. 

 Traquair gave an account, illustrated by the original specimens, 

 diagrams, and a model, of the remarkalile fossil Paluospondyltu 

 Guiini. He insisted on its Cyclostome afllnities, and expressed 

 his belief that Dr. Bashford Dean's pectoral fin did not belong to 

 the fossil at all. He had examined hundreds of specimens, and 

 had seen no traces of it. 



Tuesday, September 22. — The Section was occupied in the 

 morning, in conjunction with Section K, with a discussion on 

 the cell theory, an account of which will appear in the 

 report of the Botany Section. Prof. C. S. Minot read a 

 paper "on the theory of panplasm." He agreed with Biit.schli 

 in regarding protoplasm as a mixture of two fluids, similar in 

 nature to an emulsion of oil and water. There was no evidence 

 to show that vital functions were localised in small particles, and 

 that each particle in itself was a unit of living material, and with 

 a number of other such particles went to constitute the proto- 

 plasm of a single cell. He supposed that all the materials ol 

 the cell by their interaction produced living protoplasm, and 

 that therefore the particles were mutually dependent. Hence 

 the name panpla.sm. Prof. E. Zacharias thought that the study 

 of living protoplasm was one which would produce valuable 

 results, and had been too much neglected. He did not think 

 protoplasm had a fibrillar structure, and such statements usually 

 rested on an insecure basis of fact. Prof. M. M. Hartog then 

 read a communication on the " relation of multiple cell-division 

 to bipartitionat the limit of growth," in which Herbert Spencer's 

 explanation of bipartition was criticised and a new view ex- 

 pounded. 



In the afternoon Mr. E. W. McBride opened with a paper on 

 " the value of the morphological method in zoology." He 

 stated that for some time back a distrust of the morphological 

 method of studying evolution had been growing up amongst 

 zoologists, and several alternative methods had been proposed. 

 All of these, however, had their drawbacks. The reason of the 

 discontent with the morphological method was that it proved 

 too much, and the most contradictory conclusions were to be 

 drawn from the same premises. Several suggestions were offered 

 as to better ways of dealing with morphological facts. It was a 

 gratuitous assumption that similarity in broad outlines of 

 structures which were adaptive indicated descent from the same 

 species. Structural resemblance indicated not primarily identity 

 of ancestry, but similarity of past environment ; and there might 

 be all degrees in this similarity, both in extent and duration. 

 Such a conclusion was tacitly admitted by systeniatists who made 

 the basis of their system minute and apparently unimportant 

 peculiarities of external form, colour, or arrangement of similar 

 organs. It was, however, the origin and history of adaptations 

 which interested the morphologist, and his task must be not 

 primarily to draw up genealogical trees, but to correlate adapta- 

 tions as far as possible to the external conditions which h.ad 

 caused them. Mr. F. A. Bather largely followed the conclusions 

 of Mr. McBride. A great deal of misconception had arisen on 

 account of general conclusions having been drawn from the study 

 of specialised types. As an instance of this he cited the case of 

 the Crinoid Aiitedoit, which was a most specialised form, and yet 

 had done duty for a primitive type. Morphologists should be 

 more careful in the selection of their types if they wanted to 

 base general conclusions on their results. Prof F. V. Edgeworth 

 then read a paper upon the habits of wasps, showing how 

 statistical methods could be utilised with success in the study of 

 the migrations and other movements of animals such as wasps 

 and other insects. 



The following business concluded the proceedings for the day : 

 Prof. C. S. Minot read a paper on the morphology of the olfactory 



