LINN'BAIf SOCIETY OV LONDON. 2 5 



Liniiean Society that it should have produced, by a process which 

 may be described as gemmation, so vigorous an oft'spring as the 

 Zoological Society has proved itself to be ; and, so far as I am 

 aware, the Zoological is the only Society for which the Linnean is 

 directly responsible. But I may allude to the fact that, at an earlier 

 period, the Linnean Society stood godmother to the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society. That Society was constituted in 1804 ; and 

 whilst I have no evidence that the initiative in the matter was due 

 to the Linnean Society, yet it is significant that most of those 

 whoso names appear in its Charter, such as Sir Joseph Banks, 

 George Earl of Dartmouth, Thomas Andrew Knight, Richard 

 Anthony Salisbury, and James Dickson, were Fellows of the Linnean 

 Society. Nor has the connection between the Societies been at any 

 time other than intimate ; it will be remembered, for instance, that 

 Bentham was Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society from 

 1829 to 1840, and so directed its affairs as to raise it to prosperity. 



From this brief allusion to the part played by our Society in the 

 organization of Natural History, I pass to the consideration of its 

 work as revealed in its publications. President Bell, in 1857, with 

 pardonable pride, pointed ' to the twenty-two volumes of our 

 " Transactions,"' which are to be found, worn by the hands of 

 students of Natural History, on the shelves of every important 

 scientific library in Europe, indeed in the civilised world.' I can 

 point, with even more justifiable satisfaction, to no less than thirty 

 volumes of " Transactions " common to both Botany and Zoology, 

 together with five devoted entirely to Botany and seven entirely to 

 Zoology; and, in addition, to something like eight composite volumes, 

 and twenty-seven botanical and twenty-one zoological volumes of 

 our " Journal," which, launched in 1 857 with some misgiving as an 

 experiment, has become the most useful of our publications. 



But the exterior contemplation of this array of goodly tomes, 

 though it convincingly proves that the Society has not been idle, 

 affords no criterion of the value of its work : this can only be 

 arrived at by a consideration of their contents. In attempting this 

 difficult task, I recognize the impossibility of enumerating all the 

 important papers, or of mentioning every distinguished name. It 

 must suffice to trace broad outlines, giving only so much illustrative 

 detail as may be necessary to secure due proportion. 



So far as I am able to form an opinion, it may be fairly said that 

 the botanical work contained in the first ten volumes (1791-1811) 

 of the " Transactions " rather falls short of the zoological in 

 permanent interest. Among the Botanists, the most notable con- 

 tributors were Sir J, E. Smith, Salisbury, Woodward, Stackhouse, 

 Dawson Turner, and Sir William Hooker, of whom the President 

 Was by far the most prolific ; moreover we find in these volumes 

 the historic names of some of our early Foreign Members, such as 

 Swartz, I'Heritier, Thunberg, Afzelius, Brotero, and Curt Sprengel. 

 These volumes are chiefly interesting botanically in that they largey 

 consist of the numerous and valuable i^apers of our Founder, and 



