Dec., 1890. midland union of natural history societies. 275 
think that, if the council seriously considered the “Naturalist’ 1 
from this point of view, means might be adopted for increasing 
its popularity without injuring its scientific character. We 
are greatly indebted to its editors for their gratuitous labour 
during the twelve years of its existence, and I am sure that 
at this moment the warmest wish of our hearts is—Success 
to the Midland Union, and a rapid development of the 
“ Midland Naturalist” through all the organic phases culmi¬ 
nating in a splendid climacteric, even if it be followed at some 
far distant period by the inevitable organic death. 
Discussion on the President’s Address. 
Mr. Packe, of Stretton Hall, remarked that it would be 
quite impossible for one who was unprepared to make any 
answer to the vein of thought struck out in the very lucid 
and thought-stirring discourse the president had given them. 
His comparison of the similarities and the differences of 
mechanical force and organic force must rouse in all of them 
many new thoughts and new views. Passing from that to the 
question of species, he was compelled to say he could not 
agree with Mr. Mott in his remarks on that particular 
question. He felt sure that no one who had botanised on the 
mountain slopes of Europe, where the flowers were subject to 
so many climatic influences, and had practically to fight for 
their existence, would ever think of attempting to define 
species. It would be impossible for them to fix the line. 
Mr. Herbert Stone, F.L.S., could not agree with the 
president that the moment of fission was the moment of 
death in unicellular organisms. When a single organism 
divided itself into two by fission they could not say that the 
original organism had disappeared. It really became two 
individuals which were the halves of the original one. Death 
meant a stoppage or cessation of function, and in the case of 
division of unicellular organisms no function had stopped 
at all. 
Mr. A. T. Y. Turner also took part in the discussion. He 
contended that if Mr. Mott’s view was correct as to the 
relation between nervous force and bodily size, after the 
expiration of centuries the human race would be in the 
condition in which Swift represented it in the kingdom of 
Liliput. 
Mr. Mott, in replying to the discussion, said that Mr. Packe 
had spoken of the great difficulty of defining species, which 
was perfectly true. In the saxifrages and primulas this was 
remarkably so, and that might be considered as one of the 
difficulties of his view of the case. There were difficulties on 
