OCEANOGRAPHY, BIONOMICS, AND. AQUICULTURE. 437 



central avenue of the wide zoological domain — that of speciograpliy and 

 systematic zoology — which has been cultivated by the great classifiers 

 and monographers from Linnaeus to Hreckel, and has culminated in our 

 times in the magnificent series of fifty quarto volumes, setting forth 

 the scientific results of the Challenger expedition ; a voyage of discov- 

 ery comparable only in its important and wide-reaching results with 

 the voyages of Columbus, Gama, and Magellan at the end of the fif- 

 teenth century. It is now so long since the Challenger investigations 

 commenced that few, I suppose, outside the range of professional zoolo- 

 gists are aware that although the expedition took place in 1872 to 187G, 

 the work resulting therefrom has been going on actively until now — 

 for nearly a quarter of a century in all — and in a sense, and a very real 

 one, will never cease, for the Challenger has left an indelible mark upon 

 science, and will remain through the ages exercising its powerful, guid- 

 ing influence, like the work of Aristotle, Newton, and Darwin. 



Most of the authors of the special memoirs on the sea and its various 

 kinds of inhabitants have interpreted in a liberal spirit the instruc- 

 tion they received to examine and describe the collections intrusted to 

 them, and have given us very valuable summaries of the condition of 

 our knowledge of the animals in question, while some of the reports 

 are little less than complete monographs of the groups. I desire to 

 pay a tribute of respect to my former teacher and scientific chief, Sir 

 Wyville Thomson, to whose initiative, along with Dr. W. B. Carpenter, 

 we owe the first inception of our now celebrated deep-sea dredging 

 expeditions, and to whose scientific enthusiasm, combined with admin- 

 istrative skill, is due in great part the successful accomplishment of the 

 Lightning, the Porcupine, and the Challenger expeditions. Wyville 

 Thomson lived long enough to superintend the first examination of the 

 collections brought home, their division into groups, and the allotment 

 of these to specialists for description. He enlisted the services of his 

 many scientific friends at home and abroad, he arranged the general 

 plan of the work, decided upon the form of publication, and died in 

 1882, after seeing the first ten or twelve zoological reports through the 

 press. 



Within the last few months have been issued the two concluding 

 volumes of this noble series, dealing with a summary of the results, 

 conceived and written in a masterly manner by the eminent editor of 

 the reports, Dr. John Murray. An event of such first-rate importance 

 in zoology as the completion of this great work ought not to pass 

 unnoticed at this zoological gathering. I desire to express my appre- 

 ciation and admiration of Dr. Murray's work, and I do not doubt that 

 the section will permit me to convey to Dr. Murray the congratulations 

 of the zoologists present, and their thanks for his splendid services to 

 science. Murray, in these " Summary" volumes, has given definireness 

 of scope and purpose and a tremendous impulse to that branch of 

 science — mainly zoological — which is coming to be called 



