106 
repeating words familiar to many of you, to reproduce the 
following passage :—‘‘ When speculations on the long series 
of events which occurred in the glacial and post-glacial 
periods are indulged in, the imagination is apt to take alarm 
at the immensity of the time required to interpret the 
monuments of these ages, all referable to the era of existing 
species. In order to abridge the number of centuries which 
would otherwise be indispensable, a disposition 1s shown by 
many to magnify the rate of change in prehistoric times by 
investing the causes which have modified the animate and 
inanimate world with extraordinary and excessive energy. It 
is related of a great Irish orator of our day that when he was 
about to contribute somewhat parsimoniously towards a 
public charity, he was persuaded bya friend to make a more 
liberal donation. In doing so he apologised for his first 
apparent want of generosity by saying that his early life 
had been a constant struggle with scanty means, and that 
‘they who are born to affluence cannot easily imagine how 
long a time it takes to get the chill of poverty out of one’s 
bones.’ In like manner we of the living generation, when 
called upon to make grants of thousands of centuries in order 
to explain the events of what is called the modern period, 
shrink naturally at first from making what seems so lavish 
an expenditure of past time. Throughout our early education 
we have been accustomed to such strict economy in all that 
relates to the chronology of the earth and its inhabitants in 
remote ages, so fettered have we been by old traditional 
beliefs, that even when our reason is convinced, and we are 
persuaded that we ought to make more liberal grants of time 
to the geologist, we feel how hard it is to get the chill of 
poverty out of our bones.” 
In an earlier part of these remarks I referred to the diffi- 
culties that beset the isolated worker ; still less hopeful are 
our prospects of obtaining satisfactory results of our inves- 
tigations if we attempt to study one particular branch of 
natural history to the exclusion ofall others. I do not wish 
to imply one word against specialists,—on the contrary, they 
are of theutmost importance toaccurate work; but let them 
so freely interchange their views with each other that they 
are in constant touch with each other’s work. 
As an illustration of my point I can take no better 
example than the order Lepidoptera ;—it is one of the most 
popular orders for study, it affords opportunities for experi- 
ment that few if any others offer, and is one with which 
the majority of you are intimate. What greater pleasure 
