THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 44) 
If, indeed, there was no deficiency of scientific and 
working naturalists in the society, who would not 
suffer these objects to remain in the museum, year 
after year, unexamined and unrecorded, until time 
or moths consumed them, then, indeed, the case 
would be different. But the contrary is notoriously 
the fact: the museum of this society, under the 
present regulations, is of little or no use to the 
science of the country; the members make very 
little use of it themselves, and prohibit it to 
others *, who have generally the abilities, and the 
industry, to turn it to advantage. Short specific cha- 
racters may do very well for securing the first honours 
of nomenclature; but this primary examination, 
after all, is merely skimming the surface of things ; 
and even this, if we are rightly informed, has never 
yet been done to the museum in question, at least 
so far as ornithology is concerned, the most inviting 
branch of vertebral zoology. 
(303.) But this negative encouragement of science 
is not all that would be done by such a society, if 
it really wished to build itself a solid scientific re- 
putation, apart from that popularity which it will 
always derive from its gardens and menageries. 
Might it not be reasonably expected, that from this 
society a series of illustrative works should emanate, 
on all new objects coming into its possession? If 
not, it could at least appropriate an annual sum for 
subscriptions to such publications of this description 
as are deemed worthy of support. Works with 
coloured plates, for instance, which hardly ever 

* See Fauna Americana Borealis, vol. ii. pref. p. lxii. 
