of this Magazine,' V 329 



they feel any interest on such points, how far I have been 

 either ignorant of the labours of our French contemporaries, 

 or unjust to their merits. There they will find that, as I 

 have elsewhere expressed myself, I was among the very first 

 of our British zoologists, and in union with some of the most 

 enlightened among them, to break through the restricted 

 mode of studying nature that retarded the growth of the 

 science in this country, and to open the eyes of our rising 

 naturalists to the improvements of the Continental schools. I 

 here, indeed, find myself standing on high ground. Nor 

 have my exertions been unfelt or unacknowledged. I could 

 refer to the kind and flattering expressions of many of the 

 most eminent of the founders of those schools, to testify how 

 little they are desirous of such a " defence," as Mr. Swainson, 

 or any other uncalled for volunteer in their cause, could 

 advance on the present or any other occasion. 



It is true that, in some of my previous writings, I have 

 regretted the fact, that, while we have done justice in every 

 respect to the merits of the Continental zoologists, a disposition 

 has prevailed to a great extent, on their part, to depreciate the 

 zoological labours of our countrymen. But it is equally true 

 that I have had grounds to regret it. Those who are at all 

 conversant with the history of zoology for the last twenty 

 years, require no chain of evidence to be convinced of the 

 prevalence of that feeling. It has, indeed, been a source of 

 regret among us, as universally acknowledged as deeply felt. 

 The very names which Mr. Swainson so strangely brings for- 

 ward on this occasion — strangely, I must say, for they militate 

 most powerfully against himself — those of Sir Stamford Raf- 

 fles *, the greatest benefactor of science that this or any other 



* The general prevalence of these prejudiced feelings against our natu- 

 ralists on the part of the Continental writers, but certainly not those of the 

 highest reputation, is a fact known and lamented by all who know any 

 thing of the state of our science. The insinuation that when I alluded to 

 this fact (ZooL Journ.y vol. iii. p. 92.) I looked only to my own case, and 

 inferred the existence of that feeling, in consequence of a writer under 

 M..Desmarest's signature having rejected my arrangement of the Psittacidae, 

 and of M. Lesson not acknowledging my species of Mammalia, is too paltry 

 to be noticed, but as it points out the petty-minded spirit that pervades 

 Mr. Swainson's paper. He can know little, indeed, of the views and 

 principles of our modern naturalists, who asserts that they imagine their 

 own peculiar modes of communicating their knowledge of the facts of 

 nature will be adopted by others, or even that they should wish them to be 

 so. As to the reference to M. Lesson, it is sufficient to say, that my 

 observation, above referred to, in- the Zoological Journal^ was printed two 

 years before that gentleman's remarks in the Bulletin des Sciences, The 

 anachronism involved in Mr. Swainson's insinuation is as glaring here, as his 

 mode of confounding, cause and effect elsewhere. 



