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TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 109 
pointed out by Dr. Giinther in his paper on the geographical distribution of reptiles 
(Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858, p. 373); 2nd, that the mammalia of North Africa are 
not European, like the birds; 3rd, that the insects of the Moluccas and New Guinea 
are generally of Indian forms, while the birds and mammals are Australian; and, 
Ath, that the insects of Chili are of North-Temperate and Australian forms, while 
the birds and mammals are mostly of true South-American groups. These cases 
were treated successively ; and it was shown that the statement as to the mammals 
of North Africa was incorrect, and that they really very strongly confirmed the evi- 
dence of the birds and reptiles as to that country being Palearctic. In the other 
cases the anomalies of distribution were explained as being due to special excep- 
tional circumstances, which should not invalidate the general accuracy and useful- 
ness of these divisions. The discrepancies in the distribution of plants, which, 
while often agreeing with those of insects, were much greater, were supposed to be 
in a great measure due to the adventitious action of the glacial epoch and of floating 
ice. In conclusion, naturalists were called upon to furnish detailed information as 
to the agreement or discrepancies of this system of geographical regions in the 
groups to which they paid special attention, so that a final conclusion might be 
arrived at as to the advisability of adopting them for general use. 
PHystoLoey. 
Address by Professor Rotteston, F.R.S., President of the Subsection. 
THE President opened the business of the Subsection by a bibliographical 
survey of recent physiological works, periodical and systematic. Speaking, firstly, 
of British periodicals, he observed that the liberality of our various scientific so- 
cieties in publishing so many volumes of Proceedings in octavo, with illustrations, 
accounted for the more or less popular character of most other English scientific 
journals. More strictly and severely scientific papers were to be found on the Conti- 
nent, in such works as the ‘Zeitschrift,’ published under the auspices of Siebold and 
Kolliker, or the ‘Archiv’ of Reichert and Du Bois Reymond, than we ordinarily saw 
in publications devoted similarly to biological science, and dependent similarly on 
public patronage, in Great Britain. The eae and readiness with which the 
societies alluded to published the most rigidly scientific dissertations made them, 
within these islands, the favourite channel for such communications. On the 
other hand, the fact that a large number of semi-scientific natural-history periodi- 
cals were published in this country proved that a strong taste for such subjects was 
becoming widely diffused throughout it. 
The more exclusively professional and practical medical press gave evidence of 
a similar tendency in the important section of the community for which it was 
intended, by the publication of lengthy series of lectures on the more recondite 
parts of philosophical anatomy, which could scarcely have any very direct bearing 
on the practical exercise of the art of healing. 
Passing from periodical to systematic literature, Professor Rolleston said that 
there were three great departments, viz. that of experimental physiology, that of 
structural and especially of microscopic anatomy, and, thirdly, that of compara- 
tive anatomy, in which accessions both to our knowledge and to our means of ob- 
taining it, had been recently made. In the department of experimental phy- 
siology, Dr. Edward Smith’s, Dr. Davy’s, Dr. Radcliffe’s, and Dr. Pavy’s recent 
works were well known to the Members of the Association, before whom the 
authors had brought, or would upon the present occasion bring, papers. Whilst 
upon this subject, Professor Rolleston made some remarks upon vivisection. A 
defence might be set up for it upon the following grounds, and under the follow- 
ing limitations :—Firstly, in the operations. passing under that name, the first 
thing done in many cases was to extinguish life and sensibility in a manner (as by 
pithing) as much more speedy than the ordinary methods for the destruction of 
animals, as the scalpel of the anatomist was a surer and speedier agent than the 
clumsy tools of the slaughter-house or the uncertain ones of the sportsman. In 
