Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London - University Library

20
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
most characteristic feature. It was here that the theory of evolution
was first given to the world : why should not this be also
the birthplace of the epoch-making biological theories of the
future ?
Whilst the review of the Session affords ground for satisfaction
and for hope, it is by no means devoid of matter for regret. A
year ago I expressed the wish that Professor Howes might soon be
restored to his useful and indefatigable activity amongst lis ; and
in that anticipation we i-e-elected him Zoological Secretary. As
we all know, to our sorrow, that anticipation has not been fulfilled.
At an early period in the Session it became necessary for him to
resign his" office, which was filled by the election of the Rev.
T. 11. E. Stebbiug, to whom it is impossible to give higher praise
than to say that he is emulating the example of his distinguished
predecessor. On the occasion of his resignation, the Council
transmitted to Prof. Howes a vote of sympathy and of appreciation
of his valuable services to the Society, a proceeding that must, I
am sm-e, meet with the heartfelt approval of this meeting.
Our other losses include several valued Fellows, among whom I
may specially mention Dr. William Francis, for seven years an
Associate and for sixty years a Fellow of the Society, who had
long been a member of the well-known firm to whom we entrust
the printing of our publications ; Isaac Cooke Thompson, the
well-known naturalist of Liverpool, who had been Secretary and
President of the Liverpool Microscopical Society, and was one of
the founders of the Liverpool Biological Society, in connection with
which he accomplished most of the scientitic work of his later
years, devoting himself more especially to certain groups of
Crustacea ; and Sir Walter Sendall, G.C.M.G., who, in his time,
had been Grovernor of the Windward Islands, of Barbados, and of
British Guiana, as well as High Commissioner for Cyprus, and
whose death has an especially mournful interest for me in that he
was a distinguished member of Christ's College, my own old
Cambridge home, where his name was, and will remain, a household
word.
We have to deplore the loss, among our Foreign Members, of
two eminent biologists :—Dr. Carl Gegenbaur, Professor of Comparative
Anatomy in the University of Heidelberg ; and Dr. Michael
Woronin, of St. Petersburg.
Carl Gegenbaur, one of the most distinguished pupils of
Johannes Midler, leaves behind him a record of fifty years' scientific
work of the highest character. Some of his earlier years were
given up to the study of Invertebrates, but after 1860 he devoted
himself entirely to the investigation of the Comparative Anatomy
of Vertebrates. Among his many important discoveries in this
department of Zoology, perhaps the most fertile was that of the
relation between certain of the cranial nerves and the branchial
skeleton. An inspiring teacher, as well as a profound researcher,
he exercised an exceptional influence upon the development of his
subject. It is not too much to say that the present position of