Meetings, 1889. 



109 



One more attempt at the conciliation of facts with 

 otherwise unfailing laws. Have they such reproductive power as 

 for the race to successfully live on in spite of these difficulties ? 

 No ! compared with most other fishes the numoer of eggs is 

 small. The raking out of a "Wrasses' nest" (they are nest- 

 builders, cramming masses of the finer fuci, etc., into rock 

 crevices and entangling their eggs amongst them), reveals a 

 small number of eggs (i.e. small in comparison with Herring, 

 Bream, etc., etc., but certainly much larger than in Cottus, 

 Syngnathus, etc. ; the dissection of the ovaries of a gravid 

 female also bears this out. 



Well then where are we ? Do the two great laws to 

 which we owe the modification and adaptation to environ- 

 ment of all the forms around us, and which are elsewhere 

 written in such unmistakable characters, fail to solve our pro- 

 blem ? In answering this question I am fully aware — and sadly 

 alive to the fact, of my lack of qualification, but I know of no 

 scientist who has worked this problem to whom I might turn, 

 therefore speaking from own observation solely, I must say it 

 looks to me as if it does fail, or at very least, I must, pending 

 the coming of more light, say that perhaps this genus of fishes 

 is in a transitional condition, the elimination of the least fitted 

 for environment not being yet completed ; but by what road 

 they have arrived at their present varied and paradoxical posi- 

 tion is a problem far beyond my powers of even attempted 

 solution.' ' 



Monthly Meeting held May 1st, 1889, Mr. J. Whitehead, 

 Vice-President, in the chair* 



Messrs. C. E. Juleff, J. Nicolle, G. Le Masurier, and J, B k 

 Eandell were elected Members of the Society. A discussion 

 then took place as to the best means of increasing the useful- 

 ness of the Society. Mt\ Marquand presented, on behalf of the 



