44*2 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



pay their bare expenses, should receive its decided 

 patronage, and be regularly subscribed for, as a matter 

 of course. Nay, the society might go a step further, 

 and subscribe for ten or more copies; one of which 

 being deposited in the library, the others might be 

 distributed by lot, or otherwise, among the members, 

 or exchanged with foreign academies, or authors, 

 for similar works, not already in the library. 



(304-.) The institution of annual prizes or medals 

 is another effectual mode of advancing the true know- 

 ledge of zoology, and also of honouring and reward- 

 ing its votaries. With such enormous funds at their 

 disposal, why do not the Zoological Society institute 

 two or three annual medals, or premiums, for the 

 best essays upon the innumerable subjects belong- 

 ing to pure zoological science, now lying open, as 

 a field inviting the reapers, but into which no 

 one will put his sickle ! Why this backwardness 

 exists has already been stated. Every writer who 

 courts popular applause must make natural history 

 light and amusing, — or, in other words, treat his 

 subject superficially ; and thus the very few among 

 us, who are qualified to extend the boundaries of 

 philosophic zoology, abandon original research, which 

 is neither regarded nor understood, and betake them- 

 selves to a less honourable, but more profitable, oc- 

 cupation — the compilation of little volumes, and the 

 editing of animal biographies. What more effectual 

 method, therefore, exists, for raising the tone of the 

 public mind — of withdrawing it from the compara- 

 tively trivial and isolated facts of natural history, to 

 its comprehensive sublimities and large generalisa- 

 tions — than the institution of prize essays on the 



