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EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 



British Association at Leicester, 1907. — The recent meeting held 

 at Leicester was not a pre-eminently zoological one, astronomy and 

 chemistry being its strongest features. The President's address was 

 naturally confined to astronomical subjects, but one remark may with 

 advantage be pondered by zoologists. Astronomers " have learned the 

 lesson that human knowledge in the slowly developing phenomena of 

 sidereal astronomy must be content to progress by the accumulating 

 labours of successive generations of men ; that progress will be 

 measured for generations yet to come more by the amount of honest, 

 well-directed, and systematically discussed observation than by the 

 most brilliant speculation ; and that, in observation, concentrated, 

 systematic effort on a special, thoughtfully selected problem will be of 

 more avail than the most brilliant but disconnected work." 



The address to the zoological section by Dr. Wm. E. Hoyle was 

 confined to a survey of the Cephalopoda, and one of its most interest- 

 ing sections related to h discovery and investigation of luminous 

 organs in the Cephalopoda: — " These have now been observed in no 

 fewer than twenty-nine out of about seventy well-characterized genera 

 of Decapoda, and have been found to present a most interesting variety 

 in position and in structure. Before passing on, however, to consider 

 the structure of these organs, it may be Well to lay before you the 

 evidence on the strength of which a photogenic function has been 

 ascribed to them. The actual observations are remarkable chiefly for 

 their paucity ; indeed, it may seem to some that the foundation of 

 solid fact is too slender for the superstructure raised upon it, but still 

 due consideration will show that this is not the case. The first 

 recorded occurrence of phosphorescence in the Cephalopoda is due to 

 Verany, and dates back rather more than seventy years, though it 

 was not published till 1851. The description is so definite and concise 

 as to be well worth quoting : — '■' As often as other engagements per- 

 mitted, I watched the fishing carried on by the dredge on the shingly 

 beaches which extend from the town of Nice to the mouth of the Var. 

 On the afternoon of Sept. 7th, 1834, I arrived at the beach when the 

 dredge had just been drawn in, and saw in the hands of a child 

 Zool. 4th ser. vol. XL, August, 1907. 2 b 



