OPENING ADDRESS 
TO THE 
LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
By Prorsssor W. A. Herpman, D.Sc., PRESIDENT. 
[Read 11th October, 1889. ] 
CoNTENTS. 
1, Position of the Society. 5. Transmission of Acquired Characters. 
2. Procedure at Meetings. 6. Utility of Specific Characters. 
3. Original Work. 7. In Nudibranchiata. 
4. Physiological Selection. 8. In Tunicata. 
POSITION OF THE SOCIETY. 
I must first thank you very heartily for having elected me 
a second time to occupy the presidential chair, and I hope 
that the session which we are now commencing will be a 
very prosperous one with the Liverpool Biological Society. 
Prosperity in the case of a scientific society does not 
depend so much upon the number of members on the roll 
as upon the energy with which the affairs are conducted 
and the interest and value of the publications as con- 
tributions to knowledge. Judged by this standard our 
Society may fairly be regarded as having already achieved 
a considerable measure of success. Our annual volume 
of ‘‘Proceedings”’ (1888-89) is again this year larger than 
its predecessor, and the papers it contains are quite as 
important as any we have previously issued. 
As a practical testimony to the value of our ‘‘ Proceedings” 
we have the fact that our volumes have been accepted by 
about thirty of the leading Continental Societies of Natural 
Science in exchange for their own publications. The 
1 
