HAMtLTOlsl SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 117 



uishing it than he himself had been, " despite man}- wasted hours 

 he had spent over that same problem." The story may be true, 

 and certainly in many cases great difficulty exists in regard to clas- 

 sification, and connecting links are seldom obtainable, even though 

 their existence can scarcely be denied unsuspected. Now since 

 evolution has been firmly established, we may expect to find an in- 

 creasing number looking after the missing ancestral forms. I 

 think it has been stated that the late Prof. Forbes, of Edinburgh, 

 was the first writer to express an opinion that this class of organ- 

 isms, considered anatomically, should be regarded as belonging to 

 the Mollusca. However, the note adds, he merely recommended it 

 without actually adopting it himself. The view appears to be gen- 

 erally accepted now. 



Hancock and Milne Edwards, widely known palaeontologists, 

 thought the bryozoons were closely related to the /v^//zV^r?/5, classed 

 by Woodward as the lowest order of Acphalous Mollusca. The 

 Niagara shales at Grimsby will be found exceedingly rich in the 

 class referred to in this paper. The glaciated chert beds of the 

 Niagaras afforded me many specimens also. In natural liistor}^ 

 they rank above the corals and are numerous in all the modern 

 seas. Many are commonly called sea-mats, or mosses, mermaids, 

 'lace, etc. Sir Archibald Grikie, in The Class-Book of Geology, 

 under the division VII., MoUuscoida, groups tunicata (sea-squirts), 

 polyzoa, bryozoons, brachipods together. When Agassis claimed 

 that his researches led him to believe the graptolites belonged to 

 the soft-bodied Acalepha (Medusae), as well as some of the lower 

 forms now classed as corals, I forget if he alluded to this division 

 of the polyzoa. 



We have recently been informed that one of our city clergy 

 has once more been warning his congregation against the unscien- 

 tific conclusions of modern geologists — Darwin, Huxley, etc. We 

 may congratulate Hamilton on possessing a reverend gentleman so 

 competent to teach the late Dean Farrer and scores of the Anglican 

 clergy the error of their ways — Dean Farrer, of whom the author 

 of " The Warfare of Science " wrote : " His noble protest again.st 

 the theological vilifiers of Darwinism deserves perpetual remem- 



