British Association Xe^vs. 



At a meeting of the general Committee, a resolution was passed rec] nest- 

 ing that the abstracts of each section should be bound up and offered for 

 sale within two months of the meeting. As these are in type Ix^fore the 

 meeting starts, the difficulty does not seem to be great, and we hope it 

 will be carried out. As these abstracts and addresses constitute a fair pro- 

 portion of the volume, we took the liberty of suggesting that it would be a 

 great boon if the volume itself w^ere to appear within two months, instead 

 of the eve of the following meeting. We learned, however, that the staff 

 had to take its holiday, and there was also a difficulty in getting proofs 

 back from the authors. There may be something in this, but the fact 

 remains that by far the greater part of the annual Report is in type, and 

 corrected, for the meeting itself. 



The Committee for the Investigation of the Fossiliferous Drift Deposits 

 at Kirmington, Lincolnshire, and at various localities in the East Riding of 

 Yorkshire, reported that it was the intention of the Committee to have 

 completed the work at Bielsbeck during the present summer, but owing to 

 the field being under corn-crop, further excavation was impracticable till 

 after the harvest. The work will be carried on immediately after the 

 harvest, and it is hoped that the final report of the Committee will be in 

 readiness before the next meeting. The Committee was re-appointed with 

 power to expend the balance of the grant. 



Mr. Francis Darwin's remarkable address to the British Association was 

 prefaced by the words ' You will perhaps expect me to give a retrospect 

 of the progress of evolution during the fifty years that have elapsed since 

 July ist, 1858, when the doctrine of the origin of species by means of natural 

 selection was made known to the world in the words of Mr. Darwin and 

 J\Ir. Wallace. This would be a gigantic task, for which I am quite unfitted. 

 It seems to me, moreover, that the first duty of your President is to speak 

 on matters to which his own researches have contributed. My work — 

 such as it is — deals wdth the movements of plants, and it is with this subject 

 that I shall begin. I want to give you a general idea of how the changes 

 going on in the environment act as stimuli, and compel plants to execute 

 certain movements. Then I shall show that what is true of those 

 temporary changes of shape we describe as movements, is also true of 

 the permanent alterations known as morphological. 



' I shall insist that, if the study of movement includes the problem of 

 stimulus and reaction, morphological change must be investigated from 

 the same point of view\ In fact, that these two departments of inquiry 

 must be classed together, and this, as we shall see, has some important 

 results — namely, that the dim beginnings of habit or unconscious memory 

 that we find in the movements of plants and animals must find a place 

 in morphology ; and inasmuch as a striking instance of correlated mor- 

 phological changes is to be found in the development of the adult from 

 the ovum, I shall take this ontogenetic series and attempt to shew you 

 that here also something equivalent to memory or habit reigns. 



' Many attempts have been made to connect in this way the phenomena 

 ■of memory and inheritance, and I shall ask you to listen to one more 

 such attempt, even though I am forced to appear as a champion of what 

 some of you consider a lost cause — the doctrine of the inheritance of 

 acquired characters.' 



The subjects discussed by the Conference of Delegates from the Cor- 

 responding Societies of the British Association were : — ' Detailed Natural 

 History Surveys of Restricted Areas,' an important work suitable for 

 Local Societies, introduced by Professor G. H. Carpenter, Dublin ; 

 'Sanctuaries for our Native Fauna and Flora,' by Mrs. INIary Hobson, Belfast; 

 ' The Advisableness of Re-Stocking Haunts whence Fauna and Flora have 

 disappeared,' by H Davey, Esq., Brighton ; and 'Permanent Records of 

 Natural History or other Observations by means of the Card Catalogue 

 System,' by F. A. Bellamy, Esq., Oxford. • 



Naturalist, 



