Sept. 3, 1885] 
NATURE 
417. 
In the evening there was a concert in the garden of the 
Exhibition in honour of the members of the Congress. 
During Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the two 
sections of the Congress-—the Botanical and Horti- 
cultural—met in the Botanic Garden in the upper and 
lower hails of the Botanical Institute. The different sub- 
jects contained in the programme were duly discussed, 
and a resolution of Congress on the different points 
raised terminated each discussion. The method adopted 
at these meetings was one which might well be followed 
in other assemblies, and is one which reflects great credit 
on the President of the Organisation Committee, M. 
Charles de Bosschere. All the subjects to be discussed 
were treated of in longer or shorter papers, all of which 
were printed in the four fasciculi of the Preliminary 
Reports issued to the adherents of the Congress. In this 
way all the members had the subjects before them in a 
tangible form, and discussion was easy. Might not the 
British Association take a hint from this? Without 
giving up the method at present followed, let the British 
Association add to their work a discussion on one or two 
subjects of importance, papers by special men to be 
printed beforehand, so as to be in the possession of those 
who can discuss the subject at the meeting. 
The subjects of discussion—twenty-two in number— 
were mostly of considerable botanical interest, others 
being purely horticultural, the question of the Congo 
being general. Perhaps the most important subjects 
were the discussions on botanical laboratories, on 
the amount of instruction in cryptogams to be given 
in different parts of the botanical course of study 
and the recent progress of botany in different 
countries. It is important to notice that the general 
opinion of the Congress was in favour of two kinds of 
botanical laboratories, those of instruction and those of 
research, and there can be no doubt that in every society 
research should be encouraged in every way and be the 
highest object of their organisation. 
On the evening of August 3 the Burgomaster of Ant- 
werp held a reception at the Hotel de Ville, which was 
very largely attended by the members. On the evening 
of August 4 Dr. Henri Van Heurck, the Director of the 
Botanic Garden, gave a most interesting series of micro- 
scopical demonstrations in the meeting-room of the 
Botanical Section. The application of the electric light 
to microscopic work was shown, and nothing could exceed 
the perfection of the arrangement employed by Dr. Van 
Heurck. Swrirella gemma, Anphipleura pellucida, and 
Noberts’s 19th band were shown in a manner which left 
nothing to be desired ; and in the case of Amphipleura, 
not only were the stria shown as distinctly as one is 
accustomed to see them in Wavzcula rhomboides, but, by 
illumination through the object-glass, the striz were dis- 
tinctly resolved into beads ; by oil-immersion lenses, of 
which, as of other object-glasses by all the best makers, 
Dr. Van Heurck possesses a remarkable series. The 
electric light employed is obtained by a_bichromate 
battery (Trouvé’s) and Dr. Helot’s photophore. As the 
photophore works equally well with an accumulator, and 
where there is no difficulty in getting the accumulators 
charged, no better illumination can be got, and this I 
would strongly recommend to all microscopists. Alto- 
gether Dr. Van Heurck’s demonstration will be remem- 
bered as one of the most interesting things connected 
with the Congress. On the evening of Wednesday there 
was a grand banquet, when the members spent a very 
pleasant evening together. 
On Thursday morning the Congress left by train for 
Brussels. On arrival, the members went to the Natural 
History Museum, and were shown through the building 
by the Director, who kindly admitted the members of the 
Congress at an early hour. Next, the party proceeded 
to the Botanic Garden, where they were received by Prof. 
Crepin and others. The herbarium, museum, garden, and 
hot-houses were all inspected, and then the Members of 
the Congress were entertained in the orangery of the 
garden to a luncheon given by the Members of the Royal 
Botanic Society of Belgium. After luncheon the party 
proceeded by tramway to Laeken, to visit the Winter 
Garden, which had been opened to them by his Majesty 
the King of the Belgiums. Mr. Knight, the Inspector of 
the Royal Gardens, accompanied the party, and pointed 
out the objects of interest. Friday was to be devoted to 
an excursion to Ghent, and Saturday to a botanic excur- 
sion in the neighbourhood of Herrenthals, Dolen, and 
Gheel, where the Members of the Congress were to 
disperse. I left the party at Brussels, spending Friday at 
Liége with Prof. Morren, who showed me the splendid 
new laboratory in the pretty little garden under his 
charge. I afterwards visited Prof. Suringar at Leyden, 
and saw some of the treasures he has just brought back 
with him from the Dutch West Indian Islands, where he 
has been able to make extensive botanic collections of 
living and dried specimens. W. R. MCNaB 
August 31 
THE FAUNA OF THE SEA-SHORE* 
HE marine fauna of the globe may conveniently, in 
the pursuit of certain lines of scientific study, be 
divided into three groups according to the regions 
inhabited by it. There is the littoral fauna comprising 
the animals inhabiting the sea-shore and the shallow 
waters in its immediate neighbourhood, the deep-sea 
fauna, and the pelagic fauna, the latter occupying the 
surface waters of the ocean. Each of these regions pre- 
sents certain marked peculiarities of conditions of exist- 
ence, and exhibits, in accordance with these, certain 
special characteristics in the composition and history of 
the origin of its fauna. The deep-sea is devoid of sun- 
light and therefore of plant life. It is dark, cold, and 
monotonous, being devoid of day and night and periodical 
or irregular changes of any kind. Its habitation probably 
dates from no very great antiquity. The ocean surface 
can support only a peculiar fauna of animals adapted for 
floating or constant swimming, and affords no shelters nor 
resting-places. 
As Prof. Lovén writes”: “ The littoral region comprises 
the favoured zones of the sea, where light and shade, a 
genial temperature, currents changeable in power and 
direction, a rich vegetation spread over extensive areas, 
abundance of food, of prey to allure, of enemies to with- 
stand or evade, represent an infinitude of agents competent 
to call into play the tendencies to vary which are embodied 
in each species and always ready, by modifying its parts, to 
respond to the influences of external conditions.” It is in 
this littoral zone where the water is more than elsewhere 
favourable for respiration because of its aération by the 
surf and where constant variation of conditions is pro- 
duced by the alternation of the tides that the ancestors 
of all the main groups of the animal kingdom came into 
existence, and all the primary branches of the animal 
family tree first commenced to grow. It is here, probably, 
that the first attached and branching plants were deve- 
loped, thus establishing a supply of food, and rendering 
possible the colonisation of the region by animals. 
The animals inhabiting the littoral region are adapted 
in most various ways to withstand and endure the special 
physical conditions which they there encounter—the 
action of the surf, the retreat of the tides, the numerous 
enemies. Either they burrow deep in the sand, or cling 
tight to, or even bore into, the rocks, or develop hard 
shells or skeletons, or protect themselves by other modi- 
fications. Probably all hard shells and skeletons of 
marine invertebrata have thus originated in the littoral 
1 A Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution, delivered January 23, 
1885, by Prof. H. N. Moseley, F.R.S. _ 7 
2° On Pourtalesia, a genus of Echinoidia.” by Sven Lovén. (Stockholm, 
1883, p. 86.) 
