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SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
plausible excuse is for them an absolute enlargement of the territories 
they severally occupy. To a certain extent they probably could defend 
themselves successfully against their present critic. Definitions and 
frontier lines laid down a generation ago have been superseded and over- 
ridden by the fruitful discoveries of late years. The kingdom of nature 
has been found to be an agglomeration of a vast multitude of realms 
within realms. The new technical vocabulary in w’hich it is described 
has had to be expressly manufactured to name orders of existence re- 
vealed only after the elder terminology had encrusted itself with a 
confusing significance. Partly it has been rendered indispensable by 
the demand of fellow workers in different regions of the globe for a 
common tongue. Melancholy as is the conclusion, and reluctant as 
everybody must be to come to it, the ancient simplicity and stability of 
scientific nomenclature are, it is to be apprehended, gone beyond recall. 
It does not follow, therefore, that the ponderous intricacy and restless- 
ness of the system installed in their stead, of which Dr. Hudson 
complains, can prove any sufficient justification. A cry has been raised 
for the establishment of a tribunal to create a fair and uniform standard 
of judicial pains and penalties. In the world of science a Court is as 
much wanted for the revision of the vocabulary and classifications intro- 
duced by a legion of discretionary scientific jurisdictions. Formerly, 
when the field of natural science was virtually undivided, the terminology 
had to submit to a measure of central control. A Linnaeus or a Cuvier 
would sanction or disallow. At present the distribution into an indefinite 
medley of special groups has given to the workers on them an auto- 
nomy they are not invariably qualified to exercise. Though it is too 
much to hope for a return of the golden age when naturalists spoke in a 
tongue understanded of the people, and species were not continually 
splitting off under the disintegrating operation of the Microscope, at 
least there ought to be some sort of warranty against a repetition in 
natural science of the experiences of the Tower of Babel. 
That would be for the benefit of specialists themselves. The un- 
licensed fabrication of terminologies and classifications cannot be 
agreeable to any of them, unless when they are personally engaged in 
the process. For the sake of the outside commonalty of persons simply 
endowed with delight in natural history, to whom Dr. Hudson was 
addressing himself at King’s College, it is much to be wished that his 
professed brethren would give more encouragement than they have given 
of late to the pursuit in its older form. Without disrespect to the 
physiological aspects of the study, it is to be regretted that the view 
which treated it as primarily observation of the ways and usages of the 
stages of animated nature below the human has fallen comparatively 
into neglect. The President of the Microscopical Society has exhorted 
its members to prepare themselves for the profitable employment of 
microscopical investigation by diligent attention to living animals, their 
beauty and their actions. Nothing can be more astonishing than that 
science, with all its toil, has as yet discovered so few of their character- 
istics as sentient and moving creatures. How they exist, the arts by 
which they catch their prey or elude capture, the secret of their 
confidence or spite, the laws of their affections, their amusements, their 
