Proceedings of the Bclfa":! Natural History and Philosophical Society, 1920-1921. 



/T^/i October, 1920. 



Professor Gregg Wilson, President of the Society, in the Chair. 



Public Lecture by Professor J. Arthur Tho:\[SOx\, M.A., LL.l). 



Eutitled : 



"MANY INVENTIONS: A STUDY IN NATURAL 



HISTORY." 



(Abstract). 



Professor Thomson, in the course of his very interesting and 

 instructive lecture, said there is a quality of endeavour in the 

 majority of living creatures. They arc always attempting the 

 apparently impossible and achieving it. Of some, it may be said 

 that they seek the line of least resistance, and drift into a 

 parasitic or saprophytic life of ease, but that is not the way of 

 the majority. Of animals especially it must be admitted that 

 they have the will to live, and to live in a particular way, which 

 is oftener against the stream than with it. We see this quality 

 in prolific multiplication (one of our British starfishes has 

 200 million eggs) ; in the multitude of diflfereiit sjiecies (quarter 

 of a million backboneless animals named and known) ; in longevity 

 (the centenarian parrot and the Big Tree that lived for over 

 two thousand year's) ; in the conquest of space (Arctic Terns 

 within the Antarctic Circle) ; in circumventing the seasons (by 

 migration or by hibernation) ; in exploiting inhospitable areas 

 such as the dark abysses of the ocean. 



But there is another quality of living creatures for which it 

 is difficult to find a name unless it be inventiveness. They show 

 what look like ingenious ways of meeting diffiaulties, what look 

 like devices and inventions. The puzzle is that these are often 

 exhibited at levels where we dare not suppose we are dealing 

 with deliberately-thought out devices. An example of the 



