14 REPORT. 



a high degree interesting and instructive. Such Lectures 

 would have more numerous audiences, if they could be more 

 conveniently heard. In the mean time, the Council have not 

 felt justified in making any engagement for the current year, 

 except so far as to request the Keeper of the Museum to 

 prepare a course of Lectures on the Aquatic Animals of this 

 neighbourhood, to be delivered either in the ensuing or the 

 succeeding summer. 



It is one of the principal objects of the Society to encourage 

 a taste for Natural History ; and it has always proposed to 

 effect this, both by means of Lectures on the various divisions 

 of Nature, and by Collections in its Museum, without which 

 lectures of this description can scarcely be given. The value 

 of such collections is not perhaps in general sufficiently 

 understood ; and the Naturalist by whom they are formed, is 

 sometimes suspected of claiming the dignity of a science, for 

 pursuits little higher than the amusements of children. If the 

 object of a collector be no more than to accumulate and 

 to display, he is indeed very idly employed ; but if his object 

 be to acquire or to diffuse a more perfect knowledge of the 

 works of creation, there cannot be a more rational or a more 

 noble pursuit. To investigate the wisdom of Nature, is an 

 employment worthy of the most exalted understanding, 

 whether that wisdom be displayed in the configuration of a 

 planet, or in the structure of a butterfly's wing. There are 

 some, however, who imagine that nothing is to be learned from 

 a Museum except a catalogue of names ; but this, even were 

 the statement true, is surely an unreasonable complaint* If the 

 volume of Nature is worthy of being read, its vocabulary must 



