THE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 299 



sideration of the newly appointed council, we felt that the names of 

 the noblemen and gentlemen of whom that body is composed af- 

 forded an ample guarantee that the whole plan, unmutilated and 

 uncurtailed of its fair proportions, would, sooner or later, be carried 

 into execution. We question whether any society in England can 

 boast such a list of names as the Council of the Ornithological So- 

 ciety contains. The Earl of Liverpool is President ; the Duke of 

 Bedford, the Bishop of Norwich (more dear to ornithologists as the 

 Rev. E. Stanley), Sir Robert Peel, Macleay, Swainson, and Vigors, 

 are the Vice-Presidents, all members of the Council ; as are also 

 the Earl of Derby, Dr. Burchell, Mr. Ridley Colborne, J. E. Gray, 

 Captain Mangles, the Earl of Orkney, and Dr. Royle. What may 

 not be expected and obtained from such men ? Their very names 

 are in themselves a host. We were present at the opening of the 

 rooms in Pall Mall at the general meeting on the 3rd instant. In 

 the absence of Lord Liverpool, Mr. Macleay, the father of British 

 zoological science, took the chair amid the hearty applause of the 

 meeting. He opened the proceedings in a short speech, in which, 

 after congratulating the Society upon their attainment of the two 

 most important preliminary objects, " a local habitation and a 

 name," he briefly stated that the present condition of science re- 

 quired the establishment of an ornithological society ; that the plan 

 upon which this Society is projected was eminently calculated to 

 further the interests of science and to produce practical advantages 

 to all classes of the public ; and that the Society might already be 

 said to be firmly and permanently established. The Council then 

 presented their Report, which was approved and ordered to be 

 printed. Having obtained a copy we propose to give it entire, as it 

 sketches the whole outline of the plan which the Council intend 

 to execute : — 



" In pursuance of the resolution of the last general meeting, by 

 which the scheme recommended by the Provisional Committee was 

 referred to the Council, and the Council were directed to publish a 

 short statement of the views of the Society, they proceeded to con- 

 sider what portions of the scheme they could venture, in the then 

 state of the Society, to carry into execution, and embodied them in 

 the prospectus, of which each member has been furnished with a 

 copy. The total number of members is now one hundred and se- 

 venty-four ; and, considering that these members have been elected 

 while the Society could hold out the inducement of prospective ad- 

 vantages only, there appears well-founded reason for anticipating a 

 very extensive and powerful support from the public so soon as the 



