Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/365

Rh The Society is still unfavourably handicapped by a paucity of members and consequent narrow income. "The Zoological Society of London receives somewhere about £6000 per annum from members' subscriptions. The Royal Zoological Society of Ireland has received this year from a similar source £394."

Eleventh Annual Report of the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee and their Biological Station at Port Erin (Isle of Man), by Prof. W. A. Herdman, is now before us, and it is to be hoped, with the writer of the Report, that a larger and better equipped laboratory at Port Erin or at Hilbre may arise. "Liverpool owes much to the sea; it is asking but little that she should take her place in supporting oceanographic research." A Curator (Mr. H.C. Chadwick) has now been appointed, who will reside at Port Erin; much good and interesting work has been accomplished by visitant naturalists, for "in this age, pre-eminently that of Biology—the age of Darwin, Pasteur, and Lister—it is coming to be recognized equally over Europe and America that nowhere more than in Marine Biological Stations has the work of the great masters been followed up and extended, and that nowhere else can be found a more natural and happy union of the philosophy of science and of industrial applications." The concluding remarks of Prof. Herdman breathe the new biological aspirations:—"As we have recorded, in the earlier part of this Report, science students from our colleges are beginning to attend the Biological Station for purposes of work. That is very satisfactory; but we shall not be content with science students alone. We desire to interest and educate the general public in natural history, and to give all university students opportunities of studying living nature. Students of science study, to some slight extent at least, Arts subjects—Literature, History, Languages, and, it may be, Philosophy; bat how very few of the ordinary Arts-students have even the most elementary acquaintance with any experimental or natural science. Fortunately, it is now becoming rare to hear an educated person boasting of ignorance or indifference to science, but it is still very unusual to find anyone who has received a non-scientific education and who understands and appreciates the natural phenomena by which he is surrounded. The elements of nature-knowledge should surely always form part of a liberal education; and a most instructive portion of the course on nature-knowledge would be a couple of weeks spent amongst the researchers at a biological station. It is a revelation and an inspiration to the young student, or the inexperienced, to spend a forenoon on the rocks exploring and collecting with specialists who can point out at every turn the working of cause and effect, adaptation to environment, and the results of Evolution. It is equally instructive and inspiring to have a day at the microscope with, say, our authority on