THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 311 



of rewarding merit. There are some, however, of 

 more recent origin, not yet formed into legal cor- 

 porate bodies, and others of a mixed nature, which 

 require separate consideration. It will be conse- 

 quently necessary, in furtherance of our present 

 object, to give the reader some particulars of the 

 following, so far as they concern natural history, 

 viz. the Royal, Linnsean, Geological, Zoological, 

 Entomological. 



(218.) The Royal Society, — if we are to judge 

 from the contents of the printed Transactions of this 

 body, the best criterion, perhaps, we can go by, — the 

 Royal Society would seem to have almost banished 

 every department of natural history (excepting that 

 of comparative anatomy) from among the sciences 

 which deserve their attention. At least, the pa- 

 pers occasionally to be found in these volumes, 

 with few exceptions, are of a meagre and trivial 

 nature. We know not whether this circumstance 

 originates in the indifference of the council to such 

 communications, or from the disinclination of those 

 distinguished members, who cultivate this science, 

 to hazard the rejection of their papers, or to see 

 them lost, as it were, in a mass of others quite un- 

 congenial. In former times — prior, indeed, to the 

 institution of the Linnaean Society — natural history 

 occupied a prominent place in these volumes ; but 

 such men as Ellis, Banks, and Solander have long 

 passed away, and their successors in the same rank 

 of science must be sought for in the continental 

 academies. If this exclusion of zoological papers 

 from the Royal Society's Transactions be really 

 unintentional, it would be as well if some one of the 

 x 4 



