436 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
their chief attention to their own affairs, we are well 
disposed to pass over with indulgence many of the 
petty charges not yet substantiated. There is, never- 
theless, one subject that has been put forth against 
it, upon which, as being intimately connected with 
natural history, we shall venture to touch. An 
impression has long existed among the naturalists 
of this country, that their favourite science, although 
not professedly, had been virtually excluded from 
those to which, of late years, the Royal Society had 
more especially restricted its patronage and en- 
couragement ; and this implied understanding had 
arisen from the institution of the Linnean and, more 
recently, of the Zoological Societies, both of which 
were formed more particularly for the advancement 
of the science of natural history. This impression has 
been further strengthened, by the remarkable fact of 
no instance having occurred, of late years, of the Cop- 
ley or any other medals having been bestowed upon 
any of our naturalists. It seems, however, that this 
notion is altogether erroneous: for not only does a 
recent volume of their Transactions contain a zoo- 
logical paper; but it is expressly stated by the 
illustrious president, that “ physiology, including the 
natural history of organised beings,” holds the second 
rank in the scale of those sciences, for the promotion 
of which the royal medals were granted. How 
great, then, was the astonishment of all those who 
can rightly appreciate the loftiness of that genius 
which discovers a law of nature, to see that one of 
the greatest names in the annals of modern zoology 
was entirely overlooked in the late distribution of 
these national medals; while, in order that one should 
