224 CHAPTER OF MISCELLANIES. 



Hawkes & Co., of Bishop's Stortford. Instances of this kind are curious and not 

 very unfrequent perversions of the faculties of Philoprogenitiveness. — Ed. 



Hybernation of Bees. — Harris, of Easington, buried a hive of Bees in his 

 garden on October 17 last, and on being taken up last week they were found to 

 be all alive, and within three hours commenced their busy labours. The most 

 surprising circumstance is, that they were not supplied with any food at the time 

 they were deposited in the earth, and, having cast a swarm during the latter part 

 of the summer, the owner thinks there could not be any great quantity of honey. — 

 June 14. 



On the Value of Faunas. — Learning that my valued friend Mr. Dale has 

 transmitted the first part of a Dorsetshire Fauna (p. 171), for The Naturalist, I 

 send you the following extract from the last number of the Quarterly Review, 

 commencing the critique on Mr. Yarrell's excellent British Fishes. I hope you 

 will think the remarks appropriate, and not ill-timed, cordially agreeing as I do 

 with the sentiments expressed by them. I have myself advanced far with a 

 Natural History of this great county, which should have been sent for your 

 pages from time to time, but as Mr. Dale has anticipated me, I will reserve it 

 for you till he has finished. — F. 0. Morris, Doncaster, May 27, 1837. 



" Zoology, we have always thought, will never be satisfactorily unveiled till 

 every country contributes its Fauna to the general fund, and till we shall be 

 enabled, by a series of Monographs, to ascertain, not only the number of actually 

 existing species, but their geographical distribution. As long ago as the establish- 

 ment of the Zoological Club of the Linnsean Society, it was a favourite suggestion 

 of some, that its members should turn their attention to the animal productions 

 of our own country, and publish detached works, each treating of a particular 

 branch of the subject, and accessible to the general reader, which, when completed, 

 might form as perfect a catalogue of British species as the nature of things would 

 permit, and be at the same time a useful and agreeable text-book of the Zoology 

 of these islands. The proposition was received by men according to their tem- 

 pers. The sanguine hoped ; the cautious — not to say the timorous — began by 

 suggesting difficulties which soon led them towards Doubting Castle, and at last 

 conducted them into the safe custody of Giant Despair ; and there is some reason 

 for believing, that more than one Mr. Pliable found his way into the Slough of 

 Despond. The proposition slumbered — the Zoological Society of London sprang 

 up ; the proceedings and transactions of that Society rose from the ashes of the 

 Zoological Journal, whose office was done when those interesting publications 

 were called into existence. A vast field was opened ; new materials poured 

 rapidly in from every quarter of the globe, and afforded such temptations to the 

 naturalist that it was impossible to keep pen off them. But in the midst of these 



