196 Natural History in Lo7idon*^ 



Art. II. Natural History in London. 



Zoological Society. — A catalogue of the members has been published, 

 which includes 1291 names, besides corresponding members. The museum 

 in Bruton Street has received, and is daily receiving, valuable additions, as 

 is the garden in the Regent's Park. The extent of this garden has been, in 

 consequence of the various donations and purchases, considerably increased, 

 and several neat and appropriate structures are now erecting for the abode 

 of different specimens. It is a gratifying circumstance that these specimens 

 are, for the most part, clearly and distinctly named, with the native country 

 of the animal added. We could wish to see a greater variety of trees, 

 shrubs, and herbaceous plants introduced, and equally clear names and geo- 

 graphical indications placed at them also. Why should it not, as far as 

 practicable, be a botanic garden as well as a zoological garden ? It is much 

 to be regretted that those who first designed the plantations of the Regent's 

 Park seem to have had little or no taste for, or knowledge of, hardy trees 

 and shrubs ; otherwise, as we have before remarked, this park might have 

 been the first arboretum in the world. Instead of the (about) 50 sorts of 

 trees and shrubs which it now exhibits, there might have been all the 3000 

 sorts, now so admirably displaying their buds and leaves, and some of them 

 their flowers, in the arboretum of Messrs. Loddiges at Hackney. A walk 

 round that arboretum, at this season, is one of the greatest treats which a 

 botanist can enjoy, and a drive round the Regent's Park might have been 

 just as interesting. It is not yet too late to supply this defect, and the ex- 

 pense to Government would be a mere bagatelle. The Zoological Society, 

 in the mean time, might receive contributions of herbaceous plants, and be 

 at the expense of planting and naming them. 



Linnean Society. — March 3. Read. A continuation of Mr. Don's paper 

 on the Compositae of South America. 



March 17. Read. A paper on the fig trees of Jamaica, by James 

 Mac Fadyen, Island Botanist : communicated by H. T. De la Beche, Esq. 

 F.R.S. &c. This paper describes six species indigenous to Jamaica. The 

 genus is divided into two sections, accordingly as the fruit is sessile or pe- 

 dunculated. Under the first are enumerated F. Simpsoni and F. cordifolia ; 

 under the second, i^^.jamaic^nsis, F. viridis, i^.americana, and i^. lentiginosa. 

 The author states that the four species are new, and that the characters 

 of the rest had never before been properly investigated. 



Some remarks by Mr. Bicheno on the geographical and geological dis- 

 tribution of the plants of Britain were also read : and the reading of Mr. 

 Don's paper was continued. The head and horns of a remarkable species 

 of the buffalo {Bos A'rni) from India, and also a variety of the fallow 

 deer (Cervus Dama), were presented to the Society's museum. The 

 Meeting then adjourned for a month. 



April 7. Read. A paper by the Rev. Patrick Keith ; the object of 

 which was to prove that the sap of plants has the power of producing 

 buds ; or, at least, that this is the case in a great number of trees. We 

 should say, it is the case in all trees which will stole when cut over 

 by the surface, or which will produce suckers or shoots from the root, as 

 Pyrus, Prunus, Cratae'gus, ZJImus, Pilia, &c. Mr. Keith illustrated his 

 paper by a drawing of a fragment of lime tree, in which two young shoots 

 were protruded from the lip of a wound. We have now before us a 

 piece of a shoot of the common elm of about 18 in. in length, and half 

 an inch in diameter, in which four such shoots are growing from the lip of 

 the cut or section, on the upper end. This elm stick, as it may be called, 

 was put into a crystal jar, as a perch for our Pana arborea (p. 79.) on the 

 16th of January last; there is a little water at the bottom of the jar, which 



