THE LINN^EAN AND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 439 



regular manner with which its affairs are conducted, 

 gives it an honourable exception from censure, 

 whether private or public. 



(S0 L 2.) 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 it as an 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 sent 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 

 f f 4 



