698 REPORT— 1895. 



Section D.— ZOOLOGY (INCLUDING ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY). 



President of the SECTioif — William A. Hekbman, D.Sc, F.R.S., F.R.S.E., 

 F.L.S., Professor of Natural History in University College, Liverpool. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. 



The President delivered the following Address: — 



This year, for the first time in the history of the British Association, Section D 

 meets without including in the range of its subject-matter the Science of Botanj-. 

 Zoology now remains as the sole occupant of Section D — that ' Fourth Committee 

 of Sciences,' as it was at first called, more than sixty years ago, when our subject 

 was one of that group of biological sciences, the others being Botany, I'hysiology, 

 and Anatomy. These allied sciences have successively left us. Like a prolific 

 mother our Section has given rise one after another to the now independent Sections 

 of Anthropology, Physiology, and Botany- Our subject-matter has been greatly 

 restricted in scope, but it is still verj^ wide — this year, when Section I devoted to 

 the more special physiology of the medical physiologist does not meet, perhaps a 

 little wider than it may be in other years, since we are on this occasion credited 

 with the subject 'Animal Physiology ' — surely ahcmjs an integral part of Zoology! 

 It is to be hoped that this section will always retain that general and comparative 

 physiology which is inseparable from the study of animal form and structure. The 

 late Waynflete Professor of Physiology at Oxford, in his Newcastle Address to this 

 Section, said ' that every appreciable difterence in structure corresponds to a differ- 

 ence of function,' ' and his successor, the present Waynflete Professor, has shown 

 us ' how pointless is structure apart from function, and how baseless and unstable 

 is function apart from structure'- — the 'argument for the simultaneous exami- 

 nation of both ' in that science of Zoology which we profess is, to my mind, 

 irresistible. 



We include also in our subject-matter, besides the adult structure and tha 

 embryonic development of animals, their distribution both in space and time, the 

 history and structure of extinct forms, speciography and classification, the study of 

 the habits of animals and all that mass of lore and philosophy which has gathered 

 around inquiries into instinct, breeding, and heredity. I trust that the discussion 

 of matters connected with Evolution will always, to a large extent, remain with 

 this Section D, which has witnessed iu the past the addresses, papers, discussions, 

 and triumphs of Darwin, Huxley, and Wallace. 



When the British Association last met in Ipswich, in 1851, Section I), under 

 the Presidency of Professor Henslow, still included Zoology, Botany, and Physio- 

 logy, and a glance through the volumes of reports for that and neighbouring ye ars 



' Burdon-Sanderson — British Association Report for 1889. 



^ Gotch — Presidential Address to Liverpool Biological Society, vol. ix. 1894. 



