TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 701 



niics ' of tlie present day, the study of the relations between habit and structure 

 and environment — a most fascinating and promising field of investigation, which 

 may be confideutly expected to tell us much in the future in regard to the compe- 

 tition between species, and the useful or indifferent nature of specific characters. 



Other distinct lines of zoological investigation, upon which I shall not dwell, 

 are geographical distribution and palreontology — subjects in which the zoologist 

 comes into contact with, and may be of some service to his fellow-workers in geology. 

 And there still remains the central avenue of the wide zoological domain — that of 

 speciography and systematic zoology — which has been cultivated by the great classi- 

 fiers and monographers from Linnaeus to Haeckel, and has culminated in our times in 

 the magnificent series of fifty quarto volumes, setting forth the scientific results of 

 the ' Challenger ' Expedition ; a voyage of discovery comparable only in its important 

 and wide-reaching results with the voyages of Columbus, Gama, and Magellan at 

 the end of the fifteenth century. It is now so long since the ' Challenger ' investi- 

 gations commenced that few I suppose outside the range of professional zoologists 

 are aware that, although the expedition took place in 1872 to 1876, the work 

 resulting therefrom has been going on actively imtil now — for nearly a quarter of 

 a century in all — and in a sense, and a very real one, will never cease, for the 



* Challenger ' has left an indelible mark upon science, and will remain through the 

 ages exercising its powerful, guiding influence, like the work of Aristotle, Newton, 

 and Darwin. 



Most of the authors of the special memoirs on the sea and its various kinds of 

 inhabitants, have interpreted in a liberal spirit the instructions they received to 

 examine and describe tlae collections entrusted to them, and have given us very 

 valuable summaries of the condition of our knowledge of the animals in question, 

 while some of the reports are little less than complete monographs of the groups. 

 I desire to pay a tribute of respect to my former teacher and scientific chief. Sir 

 Wyville Thomson, to whose initiative, along with Dr. W. B. Carpenter, we owe 

 the first inception of our now celebrated deep-sea dredging expeditions, and to 

 whose scientific enthusiasm, combined with administrative skill, is due in great part 

 the successful accomplishment of the ' Lightning,' the ' Porcupine,' and the 



* Challenger ' Expeditions. Wyville Thomson lived long enough to superintend 

 the first examination of the collections brought home, their division into groups, 

 and the allotment of these to specialists for description. He enlisted the services 

 of his many scientific friends at home and abroad, he arranged the general plan of 

 the work, decided upon the form of publication, and died in 1882 after seeing the 

 first ten or twelve zoological reports through the press. 



Within the last few months have been issued the two concluding volumes of 

 this noble series, dealing with a summary of the results, conceived and written in 

 a masterly manner by the eminent editor of the reports. Dr. John Murraj\ An 

 event of such first-rate importance in zoology as the completion of this great work 

 ought not to pass unnoticed at this zoological gathering. I desire to express my 

 appreciation and admiration of Dr. Murray's work, and I do not doubt that the 

 Section will permit me to convey to Dr. Murray the congratulations of the 

 zoologists present, and their thanks for his splendid services to science. Murray, in 

 these ' Summary ' volumes, has given definiteness of scope and purpose, and a 

 tremendous impulse, to that branch of science — mainly zoological — which is coming 

 to be called 



OCE-UfOGRAPHr. 



Oceanography is the meeting ground of most of the sciences. It deals with 

 botany and zoology, ' including animal physiology ' ; chemistry, physics, mechanics, 

 meteorology, and geology all contribute, and the subject is of course intimately 

 connected with geography, and has an incalculable influence upon mankind, his 

 distribution, characteristics, commerce, and economics. Thus oceanography, one of 

 the latest developments of marine zoology, extends into the domain of, and ouwht 

 to find a place in, every one of the sections of the British Association. 



Along with the intense specialisation of certain lines of zoology in the last 

 quarter of the nineteenth century, it is important to notice that there are also lines 



