LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. lxxlil 
and plants of any particular country or district; 2ndly, to supply 
data to the general naturalist in his investigation of questions of 
geographical distribution and local influences on individual species 
or genera, independently of their utility in practical zoology and 
botany. For the former purpose, clearly contrasted characters 
adapted to local varieties or forms are the great desideratum; for 
the second, completeness and, above all, accurate determination and 
careful comparison with identical or allied forms in adjoining or 
more distant countries. It is satisfactory, therefore, to observe that 
authors of the most recent local Faunas and Floras, or enumerations 
of species, are perceiving the necessity of studying the animals or 
plants of other countries besides their own; and the designation of 
the local habitats of their species is now generally followed by that 
of their general geographical distribution, which it is to be hoped 
will be always either founded on actual inspection of specimens or 
accompanied by a reference to the authority relied on. 
Our Society was chartered for “the cultivation of the Science of 
Natural History in all its branches, more especially of the Natural 
History of Great Britain and Ireland;’’ but with regard, at least, 
to the higher animals and phenogamic plants of our country, the 
great and increasing interest taken in them by the paying public 
leaves us as a Society little or nothing to do. The British quadru- 
peds, birds, fishes, and the more showy insects, are illustrated in 
works of great merit; and fresh editions of our standard Floras 
succeed each other rapidly. It is little more than a twelvemonth 
since the publication of the eighth edition of Hooker’s Flora by 
Arnott, and the fifth of Babington’s Manual has been issued in the 
present month ; each one incorporating whatever recent observations 
may have added to or corrected in the previous ones. In the latter 
work I particularly notice that, besides numerous amendments of 
detail, Prof. Babington has remodelled his synopsis of the natural 
orders after the plan of the French analytical keys. All notices of 
new localities and enumerations of species observed in local districts 
would therefore be more useful if communicated to the editors of these 
works, than if sent to our Society for insertion in our records. It is 
in the lower orders of animals, and in some branches of Cryptogamic 
Botany, that much remains to be observed and described before the 
inhabitants of our island can be said to be well known. Some im- 
portant contributions have recently appeared, amongst which I would 
especially notice the History of British Sessile-eyed Crustacea, by 
Messrs. Spence Bate and Westwood; the Monograph of British 
Spiders, by Mr. Blackwall, the first volume of which has been 
