JOUENAL 



OF THE 



EOTAL MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 



APEIL 1889. 



TEANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 



ly. — The President's Address. 

 By C. T. Hudson, M.A., LL.D. (Cantab.). 



{Annual Meeting, 13i7i February, 1889.) 



It is no longer possible, I think, for your President to give, as the 

 substance of his Address, a summary of the most important improve- 

 ments of the Microscope, and of the most remarkable results of 

 microscopical research, which have been recorded in the preceding 

 twelve months. 



All this is now so fully and so admirably done in your own 

 Journal, by your energetic Secretary and his able colleagues, that 

 your Presidents will most probably, in future years, have to follow the 

 excellent precedent set by Dr. Dallinger, and choose for the subject 

 of their Addresses some topic directly springing from their own special 

 studies. For, on an occasion like this, each President would wish to 

 give the Society the best he can, and it is clear that this best must be 

 sought for among matters of which he has a special knowledge. 



Unfortunately, an accident, which befell me early last year, not 

 only robbed me of the pleasure of being present at several of your 

 monthly meetings, but also produced consequences that compelled me 

 to put my Microscope aside ; and, as I had not long before finished 

 my share of the ' Piotifera,' I feared at first that I had lost the power 

 of pursuing any new investigation, just at the very time when I had 

 published the results of all my old ones. 



There is, however, still a portion of my subject with which I am 

 familiar, and which, I believe, has not as yet been touched upon by 

 any one ; and I venture to hope I may make it interesting to you. It 

 relates to what may be called the foreign Eotifera ; that is to say, to 

 those Eotifera which have not as yet been found in our islands. One 

 would naturally like to know what proportion these foreign species 

 bear to the British ; whether there are any families or genera entirely 

 absent from the British fauna ; whether there appears to be any law 

 of distribution among the Eotifera; and how far it is possible to 

 account for the existence of the same species in places which are 

 thousands of miles apart. But many of the numerous memoirs, from 

 which information on these points is to be derived, are only to be 

 1889. N 



