ZOOLOGY: 1891-1915 



Edward L. Rice 



FOREWORD 



Mr. President, Honored Guests, Members of the Academy: 



The Executive Committee has honored me with an invita- 

 tion to attempt a summary of zoological progress during the 

 quarter century covered by the lifetime of the Ohio Academy of 

 Science. The subject comes to me with a special personal appeal 

 because of the coincidence that this period also measures almost 

 exactly my own scientific life. The year of the establishment 

 of the Academy found me a senior in college, and engaged in 

 my first experiments in scientific research, fortunately, perhaps, 

 never published, and in lines somewhat widely removed from my 

 later zoological interests. It is with pleasure, as well as appre- 

 ciation of the honor conferred upon me, that I accept this in- 

 vitation. 



INTRODUCTORY 



A quarter century of zoology in forty minutes ! In com- 

 parison, the then record-breaking trip of Jules Verne's hero was 

 truly a leisurely stroll ! Evidently many phases of the subject 

 must be ruthlessly cut out, or this summary of a great and grow- 

 ing science must be a mere catalog of names and dates. A com- 

 promise is probably the wisest course, although a compromise 

 must always face the danger of combining the worst defects of 

 both extremes. 



Certain branches of zoology in its broader definition are 

 omitted, confessedly, because of the writer's unfamiliarity. — 

 e. g. physiology and the rapidly developing field of biochemistry : 

 others, like general morphology and classification, lend them- 

 selves but poorly to such a summary, and are passed over with 



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