7 
earnest inquiring mind of the working man. Could some plan to 
remedy these defects, even in part, be devised in our locality, I 
for one should be only too glad to support the effort, and believe 
our Society would be earning the gratitude of our city both for 
the present and for untold generations to come. 
No address to a Naturalist Society, even of so slight a nature as 
this must necessarily be, can pass by in silence the questions raised 
by such papers as Mr. Crowfoot’s on “ Spontaneous Generation,” 
Mr. Barrett s on “ Coast Insects found Inland,” and stiU less the 
remarkable issue of Darwin’s “ Descent of Man.” That such fraU 
species of Noctuaj should have preserved their identity unchanged 
during the long period which must have elapsed since Brandon was 
a coast line, and the changes involved in that alteration, though 
small compared with some of the periods Geologists speak of, opens 
the eye to the immensity of time that may be required, whether 
for formation of a now, for a slight variation of existing, or for the 
extinction of an old species. Personally I do not consider the 
facts so brought to our knowledge go further than to make us 
realize the lapse of time and extent of change of conditions re- 
quired for such development of new or actual extinction of former 
genera; but it gives great force to an observation made to the 
Liverpool Society, that though we may regret the loss of rare 
plants, insects and birds from the few localities where they linger, 
whether by accident, agricultural changes, or by reckless coUectors, 
yet the fact of such extinction or non-extinction is itself a valuable 
one for natural science, and an important point to be carefully 
noted, as much almost as the discovery of a new species. Without 
entering on the unsettled questions of the origin of species, or 
discussing the probable truth or error of my old teacher. Dr. Grant’s 
maxim— for to him it is originaUy due— that the whole creation, 
from the monad to man, proceeded from a cell on which was im- 
pressed the potentiality of development ; and without venturing to 
follow Professor Tyndall into the tremendous vision that all poetry, 
science, eloquence, and genius, existed potentiaUy in the fire mist 
of primeval cosmical conditions, of which the sun’s photo and 
chromo spheres may be the relics, I may be aUowed to draw atten- 
