TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION t). — -pRESTnENTlAL ADnRESft. 715 



Skotion D.— zoology. 

 President of the Section. — S. F. Harmer, M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. 

 The Prftsident delivered the following Address :-— 



The British Association meets this year for the fourth time in Dublin. The last 

 occasion was just thirty years ago, when Sir William Flower presided over 

 Section D, while Professor Huxley was Chairman of the Department of Anthro- 

 pology, at that time not raised to the dignity of a separate Section, and Sir 

 Wyville Thomson was President of Section E. The last Dublin meeting was 

 fortunate in having among its officers men who have left an enduring mark on 

 Zoological science. 



I can hardly come to the more immediate subject of my Address without 

 referring to the death, on March 9 last, of Henry Clifton Sorby, who had been a 

 member of the Association for nearly fifty j'ears. Dr. Sorby was President of 

 Section C in 1880 ; but although he does not appear to have presided over 

 Section D, many of his sympathies were with Zoology. He belonged to a type 

 which is becoming almost extinct with the increasing specialisation of science, 

 having done pioneer work in more than one branch. His interest in Chemistry 

 was no doubt responsible for his having taken up the subject of the pigmentation 

 of animals, by his researches on which he is probably best known to Zoologists. 

 During recent 'years he had devoted particular attention to the study of the 

 marine fauna of East Anglia. 



According to the popular estimate, Zoology is regarded as the branch of science 

 that has perhaps the least reference to the details of practical life. The import- 

 ance of the applications of Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Botany, and Physiology to 

 questions which involve the welfare of the human race is obvious and universally 

 admitted. But pure Zoology is often supposed to be a study of merely academic 

 interest, and its relation to the practical concerns of mankind is not always 

 apparent. It is no doubt true that many of the investigations undertaken by 

 Zoologists are of a highly special nature; and yet when the sum total of the 

 results achieved by workers in this science is estimated it will be found that the 

 contributions of Zoology to the common stock of human knowledge are by no 

 means of restricted application. 



There is no conception which has more profoundly influenced thought in all 

 branches of knowledge than the idea of organic evolution, in the development of 

 which Zoology has shared the honours with its sister-subject, Botany. The present 

 summer has seen a memorable event in the celebration by the Linneau Society, 

 on July 1, of the fiftieth anniversary of the communication to that society of 

 papers, by Darwin and Wallace, which revolutionised the whole of Biology, 

 There can surely have been few occasions when the commemoration of the jubilee 

 of an epoch-making discovery has been attended by the man whose work was 

 thus recognised. I am sure that I am expressing a unanimous feeling in saying 



