ADDRESS TO THE BIOLOGICAL SECTION OF THE 

 BRITISH ASSOCIATION (1890), 



By Professor A. Milnes Marshall, M.A., M.D., D.Sc, F.R.S., 



President of the Section. 



As my theme for this morning's address I have selected the Development 

 of Animals. I have made this choice from no desire to extol one 

 particular branch of biological study at the expense of others, nor 

 through failure to appreciate or at least admire the work done and the 

 results achieved in recent years by those who are attacking the great 

 problems of life from other sides and with other weapons. 



My choice is determined by the necessity that is laid upon me, 

 through the wide range of sciences whose encouragement and advance- 

 ment are the peculiar privilege of this Section, to keep within reasonable 

 limits the direction and scope of my remarks ; and is confirmed by the 

 thought that, in addressing those specially interested in and conversant 

 with biological study, your President acts wisely in selecting as the 

 subject-matter of his discourse some branch with which his own studies 

 and inclinations have brought him into close relation. 



Embryology, referred to by the greatest of naturalists as ' one of the 

 most important subjects in the whole round of Natural History,' is still 

 in its youth, but has of late years thriven so mightily that fear has 

 been expressed lest it should absorb unduly the attention of zoologists 

 or even check the progress of science by diverting interest from other 

 and equally important branches. 



Nor is the reason of this phenomenal success hard to find. The 



