TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION 0. 783 



been able to see tlie remarkable revolution which was wrought by the publication 

 of that book. 



The main argument on which Miller rested was the ' high ' state of organisa- 

 tion of the ancient tishes of the Palreozoic formations, and this was apparently com- 

 bined with a confident assumption of the completeness of the geological record. 

 As to the first idea, we know of course that evolution means the passage from 

 the more general to the more special, and that although as the general result an 

 onward advance has taken place, yet specialisation does not always or necessarily 

 mean 'highness' of organisation iu the sense in which the term is usually 

 employed. As to the idea of the perfection of the geological record, that of 

 course is absurd. 



We do not and cannot know the oldest fishes, as they would not have had hard 

 parts for preservation, but we may hope to come to know many more old ones, 

 and older ones still, than we do at present. My experience of the subject of fossil 

 ichthyology is that it is not likely to become exhausted in our day. 



We are introduced at a period far back in geological history to certain groups 

 of fishes some of which certaiuly are high in organisation as animals, but yet of 

 generalised type, being fishes and yet having the potentiality of higher forms. 

 But, because their ancestors are unknown to us, that is no evidence that they did 

 not exist, and cannot overthrow the morphological testimony in favour of 

 evolution with which the record actually does furnish us. We may therefore 

 feel very sure that fishes, or ' fish-like vertebrates,' lived long ages before the 

 oldest forms with which we are acquainted came into existence. 



The modern type of bony fish, though not so 'high' in many anatomical 

 points as that of the Selachii, Crossopterygii, Dipnoi, Acipensea-oidei, and 

 Lepidosteoidei of the Pal.'Bozoic and Mesozoie eras, is more specialised in the 

 direction of the fish proper, and, as already indicated, specialisation and'hio-h- 

 uess ' in the ordinary sense of the w^ord are not necessarily coincident. But ideas 

 about these things have undergone a wonderful change since those pre-Darwinian 

 days, and though we shall never be able fully to unravel the problems concerning 

 the descent of animals, we see many things a great deal more clearly now than 

 we did then. 



The following Reports were read : — 



1. Report on the Bird Migration in Great Britain and Ireland. 

 See Reports, p. 403. 



9 



Report on the Occupation of a Table at the Zoological Station, Naples. 



See Reports, p. 380. 



8. Report on the Occupation of a Table at the Marine Biological Labora- 

 tory, Plymouth. — See Reports, p. 399. 



4. Report on the ' Index Animalium.' — See Reports, p. 392. 



5. Interim Repo7't on the Plankton and Physical Conditions of the English 

 Channel. — See Reports, p. 379. 



G. Tenth Report on the Zoology of the Sandwich Islands. 

 See Reports, p. 398. 



