TKANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 591 



Section D.— BIOLOGY. 

 President of the Section— A. 0. L. Gunihee, M.A., M.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., 



r.L.s. 



DEPARTMENT OP ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 



THUBSDAY, AUGUST 26. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



Sixteen years ago, at the meeting of the British Association in Bath, the duty 

 •which I am endeavom-iug to discharge to-day was entrusted to my predecessor and 

 old friend, the late Dr. John Edward Gray, In the address which he then de- 

 livered before this Section, he spoke on ' Museums, their Use and Improvement, 

 and he who had devoted a whole lifetime to the formation and management of one 

 of the greatest zoological collections in the world, was well qualified to give an 

 opinion and advice on this subject. Indeed, when I read now what he then insisted 

 on as a necessary change in the system of Museums, I feel compelled to pay a 

 passing tribute to his memory. 



Zoology, geology, botany were to him not distinct and independent studies ; the 

 views advanced by a Lamarck, by a Trevii'anus, -viz., that our knowledge of these 

 sciences would remain fragmentary and one-sided as long as they were not studied in 

 their mutual relations, found in him one of the earliest advocates in this country. 

 Against all opposition he tried to unite the Zoological and Palaeontological col- 

 lections in the British Museum, giving up this attempt only after having convinced 

 himself of the impracticability of the scheme ; and he readily joined the band of 

 men who demanded that a Museum should be not merely a repository for the 

 benefit of the professed student and specialist, but serve in an equal measure for 

 the recreation of the whole mass of the people and for their instruction in the i 

 principles of Biology. This was the spirit in which he worked, and in the last 

 years of his life he had the satisfaction of being able to say that thei-e was no other 

 collection in existence more accessible and more extensively used than the one 

 under his charge. 



I am encouraged to return to-day to the same subject, because I have daily 

 the opportunity of observing that the public more and more comprehend the use of 

 Museums, and that thej' appreciate any real improvements, however slight. Para- 

 graphs, leaders, articles published in the public journals and periodicals, references 

 made in speeches or addresses, questions put in the Houses of Parliament whenever 

 an opportunity offers — all testify that the progress of Museums is watched with 

 interest. Not long ago a Royal Commission entered deeply and minutely into the 

 subject, and elicited a mass of evidence and information invaluable in itself, though 

 you may differ from some of the conclusions and views expressed in their final 

 report. Biological Science has made rapid strides: not only do we begin to under- 

 stand better the relations of the varieties of living forms to each other, but the 

 number of varieties themselves that have been made known has also been increased 

 beyond all expectation, and the old repositories have everywhere been found too 

 narrow to house the discoveries of the last forty years. Therefore you find that 

 the United States, Austria, Prussia and Saxony, Denmark and Holland, France 



