206 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
gains ; for the new journal is a most admirable production, and 
bids fair to become one of the most important of English scientific 
serials. This special subject is now well supplied ; for we have 
in addition to this, the old Quarterly Journal of Microscopical 
Science and the Journal of the Quekett Club. I may add that the 
Eoyal Microscopical Society has done your president the favour of 
electing him an honorary member for his year of office, and the 
valuable Transactions are consequently sent him ; and these he 
has the pleasure of transferring to the library, a course which it is 
hoped future presidents will follow. 
In connection with microscopy I may mention the excursion of 
the Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical Society to the 
Cornish coast. This is the fourth excursion of this kind that this 
society has carried out. The party consisted of nine ladies and 
twenty -two gentlemen. A steam -tug was engaged, the head- 
quarters being at Falmouth. Dredging, botanizing, and geologizing 
went on daily, and the result was that large collections were made, 
which are now being examined, and will be shortly reported on. 
It seems to me that this kind of work is very satisfactory, and 
must benefit, not only individuals, but science generally; and the 
example of our northern friends is well worthy of imitation. 
I have before referred to some of the proceedings of the British 
Association. The meeting was a small one, and presented no 
special features of interest. In the department of Section D, 
Biology, beyond those I have mentioned, no papers of any con- 
siderable interest were read. The address of the president, Professor 
St. George Mivart, was noticeable as showing the great obligations 
science owes to Buffon, and contrasting the work accomplished by 
him, but not in any spirit of rivalry, with that done by Linnaeus, 
as set forth by the president of last year, Professor W. H. Flower. 
The address of the President of the Association, while containing 
perhaps few, if any, new facts, was a masterly arrangement of our 
knowledge of life, or, to, use his own words, an "account of the 
most generalized expression of living matter, and of the results of 
the most recent researches into its nature and phenomena." 
The weak part of the address, it is generally considered, is the 
statement made with reference to Bathybius Haeckelii. It is said 
that after the parent of Bathybins had disowned it as his offspring, 
