REPORT ON ZOOLOGY. 251 



ture to throw out for the further promotion of zoology. I have 

 only to add, that with reference to the progress it is actually 

 making in our own country, and the promise which is held out 

 of uninterrupted advancement, comparing this country, not with 

 others, but with itself at former periods, there is ground for 

 much exultation. Looking to what has been effected of late 

 years, however more striking in some departments than others, 

 to the important works and memoirs which have appeared 

 amongst us, and to the channels which have been opened for the 

 more successful cultivation of this science, it is impossible not 

 to anticipate the most valuable results. There is one institution 

 in particular, of which I have hitherto not spoken, but which 

 more than anything has contributed to this impulse. I allude 

 to the Zoological Society, founded in 1826. The scale and plan 

 upon which this Society is conducted are calculated to obtain 

 for it the highest place amongst institutions of this nature. Its 

 Museum and Gardens, the latter for the reception of living 

 animals; its extensive correspondence with naturalists in foreign 

 countries, by which it has been enabled to acquire some of the 

 richest and most valuable collections ; are too well known to the 

 members of this Association to require being dwelt upon more 

 particularly. I may state, however, that it has recently com- 

 menced the publication of Transactions, of which two parts are 

 before the public, containing memoirs of the first importance to 

 zoology, and such as will bear competition with any of those 

 which have emanated from other quarters. 



But it is not merely in the institution of the Zoological 

 Society that we trace a rising spirit of inquiry in this branch of 

 science. We see it in the establishment of Natural History 

 Societies in almost all the principal towns of England. It is 

 unnecessary to specify these individually. It is enough to be 

 able to record the fact of their existence. This circumstance 

 alone speaks to a more generally diflFused taste for zoology, 

 which is the first step towards the advancement of zoology it- 

 self. It is only necessary to give a proper direction to the re- 

 searches of these societies, to point out those departments which 

 need most cultivation, and we may reasonably hope that the time 

 is not far distant when England will no longer be considered 

 behind her continental neighbours in this, any more than in 

 other sciences. 



