' THE LINNEZAN AND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 439 
regular manner with which its affairs are conducted, 
gives it an honourable exception from censure, 
whether private or public. 
(302.) There is probably no society in Britain, 
which, under other regulations, might do so much to 
restore zoology to her legitimate elevation as the Zoo- 
logical Society. And yet, as at present constituted, 
it seems eminently calculated to encourage that su- 
perficial and almost useless taste for natural history 
now so prevalent, and which arises from the custom of 
regarding itasan amusement rather than as a science. 
Where there are ample funds, as in the present 
case, a judicious management may unite, in equal 
proportions, popular recreation with the encourage- 
ment of legitimate science; for the attraction of the 
former would raise funds for paying the latter, and 
thus the highest objects might be combined with 
those that were more ornamental than useful. Our 
idea of what a society, so constituted, should do, is as 
follows: — Three or four competent persons should be 
in the regular pay of the society, as travelling na- 
turalists, who should be senf to different parts of the 
world to collect live animals, and preserve dead ones. 
Let them be furnished with proper instructions, 
as to those subjects to which they should more par- 
ticularly devote their attention, such as the habits 
and manners of particular species in a state of 
nature. Their journals should be kept regularly, and 
transmitted from time to time to the society. To | 
diminish, in some measure, the expense of these 
missions, the duplicates, of which there would be a 
large proportion, might be sold by auction for the 
benefit of the society, or by private contract among 
FF 4 
