1855.] Linnean Society. 395 



undivided attention to the duties of their respective offices. These 

 duties, I strenuously assert, ought not to be restricted to the mere 

 delivery of short elementary courses of lectures ; but they should 

 include the exertions necessary for promoting original discovery, to 

 the general advantage of the country and the special reputation of 

 the University," 



At neither of the Universities is there a Professor of Zoology. At 

 Oxford the only means for studying this important subject are the 

 Lectures on Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, which the Reader 

 in Anatomy may in his own zeal and judgment be led to volunteer. 

 That Dr. Acland will do this to the utmost of his means, and with 

 all the earnestness and talent for which he is so conspicuous, we are 

 well assured ; but it still remains a lamentable defect in the regime 

 of so great and rich a University that there is no special provision 

 for teaching this science. 



At Cambridge there is, though to a less extent, the same want, 

 and there is also a similar collateral and voluntary supply. There is 

 a Chair of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology filled by one 

 possessed of very high attainments, who notwithstanding his clerical 

 duties and the time and labour which his Professorship of Anatomy 

 demands, still keeps himself au niveau with the science of the day, 

 and, as far as is practicable, supplies the deficiency to which I have 

 alluded. This gentleman thus expresses himself on this subject in 

 a letter with which he has lately favoured me. — " It is much to be 

 regretted that we have no Professorship of Zoology. Not that I 

 suppose, if we had such a chair, the lectures given would be at once 

 largely attended, but because it is a proof, amongst many other in- 

 dications, how little zoological science is cared for in England, as a 

 means and an element of education." In Comparative Anatomy there 

 is an annual course of fifty lectures given by the excellent person to 

 whom I have just referred, between October and Easter. "They are," 

 says Dr. Clark, " thinly attended, but scarcely a year passes without 

 several of the attendants showing peculiar taste and talent for the 

 subject of them." A translation of Van der Hoeven's ' Handbook of 

 Zoology,' from the Dutch, is being printed at Cambridge under 

 Dr. Clark's auspices, wath the view of rendering a taste for an 

 acquaintance with Zoology and Comparative Anatomy more general 

 amongst the students there. 



It is true that at Cambridge the Senate has also endeavoured to 

 provide the means necessary for the study of Zoology and Compa- 

 rative Anatom)^, by obtaining and kee])ing up good collections of 

 specimens when they have been offered ; and the acquisition of 



