676 REPORT— '1903. 



pursue in the future. I caunot but hope that if some conference were held, at 

 which those zoologists who have made a special study of these matters were 

 present, the priucipal differences of opinion might he cleared up and a unanimous 

 report presented to the authorities. 



I have felt very strongly for some time past, and I know there are many of my 

 colleagues wlio agree with me, that the zoologists of this country are under some 

 disadvantage in not being provided with the necessary machinery for full dis- 

 cussion of matters which affect the welfare of the science as a whole. There are 

 several societies which receive, discuss, and publish papers on various branches of 

 zoological research, but they do not, and from the nature of their constitution 

 cannot, give effective utterance to the general or unanimous opinion of professional 

 zoologists on matters of their common interests. There is no society which all 

 serious students and teachers of zoology feel is the one society whicb it is their 

 duty and in their own interests to join. Some join the Zoological Society of 

 London, others the Linnean Society, others, again, the Iloyal Microscopical, 

 Entomological, or Malacological Societies, or some combination of two or more of 

 them. There is no common ground on which we meet for the discussion of such 

 subjects as those I have just mentioned in this Address. In the early days 

 of the British Association tbis Section supplied the needs which we feel now. It 

 was the Society, if I may call it such, which all the zoologists of the time made 

 a special effort to attend. Important matters were fully discussed by the most 

 competent authorities, and people felt that the prevalent opinion on any subject 

 expressed by Section 1) was the prevalent opinion of men of science throughout 

 the country. 



In concluding this portion of my Address, I may express the hope that when 

 the Association meets next year at Cambridge some steps may be taken to render 

 the organisation which we already possess in connection with this Section more 

 generally useful and more ethcacious than it is at present. 



In the opening sentences of my Address I used an expression which some of 

 my hearers may have considered open to criticism. Let me take this opportunity 

 of saying, then, that by using the expression ' useful human knowledge ' I did not 

 intend to express an opinion that there is any knowledge of the character that is 

 expounded and discussed in these sections of the Association which can be called 

 useless knowledge. 



A distinction, however, is frequently drawn between knowledge that can be 

 directly applied to the arts and crafts and knowledge which, on the face of it, 

 appears to us at present to be only of general scientific interest. For example, in 

 the award of the Exhibition (1S51) Scholarships and Bursaries, the candidates 

 must still give evidence of capacity for advancmg science or its application by 

 original research in some branch of science, the extension of ivhich is especially 

 important to our national industries. We can rejoice most cordially in the suc- 

 cessful developments of the technical institutions in the country, we can heartily 

 join hands with our colleagues in other sciences in urging upon the authorities the 

 encouragement of those branches of science which have a direct bearing upon our 

 industries, but we have a no less important duty to perform in claiming for those 

 branches of sciences that have apparently no such direct application the needful 

 sympathy and encouragement. I venture to say that at the time the Association 

 last met in Southport no one would have ventured to predict that the study of 

 the anatomy and life history of the Diptei-a, or the general biology of the minute 

 sporozoa, would have any direct bearing upon the development of our industries. 

 But to-day, by our knowledge of the mosquito Anopheles, and the sporozoan 

 parasite it carries, we are in a position to destroy or ameliorate the malaria pest 

 which has hindered the commercial development of so many of our colonies in 

 tropical countries, and by encouraging the development of such countries we are 

 assisting to a very material extent our home industries and the general trade of 

 the country. In this, as in so many other cases, the benefit to industry and 



i commerce has come from an unexpected quarter of the field of zoological research. 

 Those who were working within the narrow limits of what is called applied 

 .science could have never discovered the facta which we now regard as of extreme 



