139
A PLEA FOR MORE SYSTEMATIC ATTENTION
TO AQUATIC BIOLOGY IN FIELD CLUB
WORK.
(Being a Presidential Address delivered to the Club on
31st March, 1928.)
By D. J. SCOURFIELD, I.S.O., F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.R.M.S.
ALTHOUGH a perusal of the pages of the Essex Naturalist
and similar publications will show that aquatic organisms
have been by no means altogether neglected by this and other
Field Clubs and Natural History Societies, it will, I think, be
conceded that the amount of attention paid to them in comparison
with that given to land plants and animals has really been very
small, and, moreover, that it has been almost entirely without
system or co-ordination.
To those who know something of the extraordinary interest
which attaches to the study of the life in our inland and coastal
waters this state of affairs may appear rather surprising, but
there are, of course, a number of reasons to account for it. I
believe the three most important are :—(1) that there exists no
general agreement as to what extent aquatic organisms can be
regarded as legitimate objects of Field Club work, (2) that the
number and importance of the problems connected with aquatic
biology are not sufficiently well known, and (3) that the col-
lection and observation of the plants and animals living in water
are rather more troublesome than in the case of land forms,
involving as they do the employment of certain special methods
and apparatus.
I propose in this Address to deal with these three points,
defining the extent to which, in my opinion, the study of aquatic
organisms may be reasonably included in Field Club work,
enumerating some of the problems arising out of such study and
referring to the various methods and appliances by which the
work can be carried out. In this way I shall endeavour to
indicate the wide range and value of the work waiting to be done,
as well as the means of accomplishing it, and to plead for more
systematic attention on the part of this and similar societies to
the inhabitants of our lakes, ponds and marshes, rivers, streams
and ditches, and the brackish and salt waters of our estuaries
and coasts.