Section D.— BIOLOGY. 

 President of the Section — Professor W. H. Flower, F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S. 



Department of Zoology and Botany. 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 1S78. 



Professor Flowkk gave the following Address, entitled : — 

 A Century's Progress in Zoological Knoivledge : — 



On the 10th of January, 1778, died the great Swedish naturalist, Charles Linne, 

 more commonly known as Linnseus, a name which will ever be mentioned with 

 respect and regard in an assembly devoted to the cultivation of the sciences of 

 Zoology and Botany, as whatever may be the future progress of those sciences, the 

 numerous writings of Linnaeus, and especially the publication of the Syetema 

 Xaturce, can never cease to be looked upon as marking an era in their development. 

 That work contained a systematic exposition of all that was known on these 

 subjects expressed in language the most terse and precise. The accumulated 

 knowledge of all the workers at Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy since the world 

 began, was here collected together by patient industry, and welded into a complete 

 and harmonious whole by penetrating genius. 



Exactly a century has passed since Linnaeus died. What of the progress of 

 the subjects to which he devoted his long and laborious life ? This one century is 

 a brief space compared with the ages which have passed since man began to dwell 

 upon the earth, surrounded by living objects, which have, more and more as 

 time rolled on, awakened his curiosity, stimulated his facidties to observe, and im- 

 pelled him to record the knowledge so gained for the benefit of those to come. How 

 does it stand in comparison which those which preceded it, in the contributions it 

 has thus acquired and recorded ? 



It may be not without interest in commencing our work at this meeting to 

 cast our eyes back and take stock, as it were, of the knowledge of a hundred years 

 ago, and of that of the present time, and see what advances have been made ; to 

 look at the living world as it was known to Linnaeus and as it is known to our- 

 selves. The Systema Natwce, the last edition of which, revised by the author, was 

 published in 1766, will be a convenient basis for the comparison ; but as the subject 

 is one which, even in a most superficial outline, might reach such lengths as would 

 well tire out the most patient of audiences, and absorb time which will be more 

 profitably occupied by the valuable contributions which are forthcoming from other 

 members of the Association, I will merely take a small section of the work, about 

 100 pages out of the first of the four volumes, those devoted to the first class Mam- 

 maxia. The comparison of this part is perhaps the easiest, as the contrast is the 

 least striking, and the progress has been comparatively the slowest. The knowledge 

 of large, accessible, and attractive-looking animals had naturally preceded that of 

 minute and obscure organisms, and hence, while in many other departments the 

 advance has altogether revolutionized the knowledge of Linnseus, in the Verte- 



