Dec., 1901.] 
Meeting of the Biological Club, 
* 5 * 
tion of certain forms of life of utility to man and the possible 
sources of food from various animals or plants not yet utilized 
may be mentioned here. Clothing comes in for its share, as in 
the methods for protection of silkworms, the saving of fur seals 
and other fur-bearing animals from extinction, and the use of 
various fibre plants. The successful growth of sponges, of pearls 
and many other articles of domestic comfort or ornament are 
connected in one way or another with biological problems, and 
their fullest development dependent on rational measures possible 
when the biological conditions are known. 
In another way these questions enter into our social and 
commercial life. The rights of property in the migrant or semi- 
migrant forms of life have biologic as well as legal basis and 
some quite peculiar legal decisions would doubtless have been 
very different had the biology been appreciated. The classifi- 
cation of turtles as ‘ vermin ’ since they are neither fish nor 
fowl may be given as a case in point. Equally absurd and some- 
times more disastrous are some of the rulings by customs officers 
whose knowledge of biolog)' was doubtless derived from a greek 
lexicon or some equally good authority. Such quarantine re- 
strictions as have been imposed upon certain products by some 
governments show total lack of knowledge as to the possible 
conditions of injurious transportation or else the misapplication 
of them to serve some special end. 
The exclusion of American pork and American fruits from 
certain countries, the controversy over the fur seals in Alaska, 
the inconsistent laws of states or nations regarding game, are 
some of the instances where it is evident that the law-making 
power and the agents of diplomacy need to be re-enforced with 
definite niological knowledge. 
But there is another phase quite distinct from the purely 
utilitarian. Biological science opens up to us the facts of life 
and solves some of the questions of the greatest interest to man- 
kind. What is life? What its origin? What are the factors 
that have controlled its development and the wonderful complex- 
ities which we observe in its distribution and adaptations? 
Are the forces that operate in the living organism merely physical, 
mechanical and chemical or are there activities inherent in life 
itself or that operate only in the presence of the life containing 
complex ? Certainly, in no other branch of science are there 
problems more inviting. In no other has present knowledge 
given greater inspiration or greater intellectual service to man- 
kind. 
Th; field for acquisition of knowledge widens with each new 
discovery. We no sooner gain foothold in some hitherto unex- 
plored realm than we become conscious that beyond this lie still 
