CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. oo 
endowed with sight have asa rule not cared to follow them, It would 
be interesting to know how that theory explains the eye-stalks of a sight- 
less prawn. But this is verging on the controversial, and it will be more 
encouraging to research, if you will believe, to begin with, that, whether 
you are Darwinians or Neolamarckians or advocates of special creation, 
you will find support for your several opinions in the prizes and surprises 
that the subterranean fauna of every land, continental or insular, is 
capable of yielding. 
The research suggested is not without difficulties, but they are not 
such as need daunt the brave explorers of British caverns, who have 
hunted down the sabre-toothed tiger and the prehistoric hyena with 
eandle and torch and pick-axe. The difficulties in searching for speci- 
mens of well fauna are partly moral and partly physical. Many wells in 
our country have, for sound reasons, been entirely closed. That in itself 
is a barrier to collecting specimens from them, but, according to my 
experience, the closure of some has indirectly barred the investigation of 
others. The distribution of the well shrimp (Viphargus) is known for 
the neighbourhood of Dublin and for the whole south of England from 
Devonshire to Kent. Yet for years I inquired for it in vain, though 
using a pertinacity something like that imputed to the fair Saracen, who, 
in the story, by constantly asking for London and for Gilbert, found her 
way all across Europe to her affianced lover, and, marrying Gilbert a 
Becket, became the mother of St. Thomas of Canterbury. Like hers, 
my perseverance was in the end rewarded ; but, in the meantime, some 
met my inquiry with smiles, and some with frowns. I am inclined to 
suspect that the smiling ones were under a real incapacity of understand- 
ing what sort of object was being asked for, but that the frowning set 
understood pretty well, and that they took me for an inspector in dis- 
guise, seeking, under pretence of an idiotic enthusiasm, for evidence out 
of their own mouths on which to order the closing of their favourite 
spring. It is obvious that, if such was their point of view, they com- 
pletely misjudged my motives, for evidence, so far as it goes, all favours 
the belief that the springs in which crustaceans are found living supply 
water that is wholesome. 
In some introductory remarks I assumed that our Conference, though 
not a Section of the Association, was in fact an epitome of the whole. 
If now I conclude by inviting the members of the Conference to go 
shrimping with a bucket and a string, it may appear to be a terrible 
example of bathos. Bathos has ever been exposed to derision in connec- 
tion with poetry and eloquence. But bathos has been otherwise called 
the art of sinking, and that art is profoundly essential in connection 
with wells. 
It will be indeed extraordinary if the caverns and springs and artesian 
borings in Great Britain and Ireland do not yield, to a united effort of 
investigation, a fauna in some degree comparable in interest with that 
which, under similar circumstances, has been and is being found in other 
perts of the globe. It will be extraordinary if the research, whatever its 
direct results, does not stimulate, in many of those who pursue it, highly 
pleasurable and profitable activities both of body and mind. At the 
worst, if the old proverb may be trusted, while groping for creatures at 
the bottom of a well, you will always have the chance of combining two 
ae cage fishing for amphipods and finding Truth. 
1899. D 
