Xlvi PKOCEEDINGS OF THE 



Commission on scientific instruction and the advancement of science, 

 and our most eminent zoologists have been consulted ; any further 

 observations on my part would therefore be superfluous. If our 

 Government fail in their arrangements for the promotion of science, 

 it will not be for want of having its requirements fully laid before 

 them. 



I am unable to say what progress has been made of late years in 

 Zoological Museums ; my notes on Continental ones were chiefly 

 ■taken between the years 1830 and 1847, and would therefore be 

 now out of date. It would, however, be most useful if some com- 

 petent authority would undertake a tour of inspection of the more 

 important ones, as in the great variety of their internal arrange- 

 ments many a useful practical hint might be obtained ; and we much 

 want a general sketch of the principal Zoological and Botanical col- 

 lections accessible to science, showing in what branch each one is 

 specially rich, and where the more important typical series are now 

 respectively deposited. In Herbaria a few changes have recently 

 taken place, which it may be useful to record. Paris (I mean, of 

 course, the brilliant Paris of a twelvemonth back) had lost consider- 

 ably. Of the many important private herbaria I had been fami- 

 liar with in earlier days, two only, those of Jussieu and of A. de 

 St.-Hilaire, had been secured for the national collection ; Webb's 

 had gone to Florence ; J. Gay's, which would have been of special 

 value at the Jardin, was allowed to be purchased by Hooker, and 

 presented by him to Kew. The celebrated herbarium of Delessert 

 is removed to Geneva, whilst his botanical library, one of the richest 

 in existence, is locked up within the walls of the Institut. These 

 are but partially replaced by M. Cosson's herbarium, which has much 

 increased of late years, and to which he added last spring the late 

 Schultz Bipontinus's collections, rich in Compositae. The national 

 herbarium of the Jardin des Plantes is still one of the richest, but 

 no longer the richest of all. The limited funds at the disposal of 

 the Administration have allowed of their making but few acquisi- 

 tions ; their staff is so small and so limited in the hours of attend- 

 ance that the increase of the last twenty years remains for the 

 most part unarranged ; and their library is most scanty. Science 

 has been out of favour with their Governments of display. It would 

 be out of place for me here to dwell upon the painful feehngs excited 

 in my mind by the dreadful ordeal through which a country I have 

 been so intimately associated with for more than half a century is 

 now passing, feelings rendered so acute by the remembrance of the 

 uniform kindness I have received from private friends, as weU as from 



