44-8 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



among a few of the highest scientific individuals in 

 this country, and whose names alone would ensure 

 success to any measures they deemed it expedient to 

 adopt. This plan consists in the formation of a new 

 society, composed entirely and exclusively of the 

 elite of science ; and into which no member should 

 be admitted, unless his reputation was already esta- 

 blished by his writings, or unless he delivered to the 

 society an original paper, certified as being entirely 

 his sole and whole composition*; his calibre would be 

 then known, and his admittance or rejection decided 

 upon by ballot. Associates would also be admitted, 

 chiefly selected from distinguished foreigners : the 

 subscription would be comparatively small, so as not 

 to operate as a pecuniary objection. The number of 

 members would be very limited, so that not more 

 than two, or, at most, three, in each department of 

 the physical sciences, would be admitted. When 

 the society consisted of about thirty or forty, 

 new elections would only take place when vacancies 

 arose from death or otherwise. Such are the main 



* It may appear singular that such a certificate should be 

 necessary, but the ingenious author of the " Reflections, " 

 however ably he has exposed most of the frauds of science, 

 seems yet to be unacquainted with one, which has been exten- 

 sively practised of late years among naturalists. It is for an 

 unscientific individual to get some " friend" to write a paper 

 for a journal or a society, describing his discoveries, and to 

 which his name is appended as the author. We know, from 

 personal knowledge, several instances of this fraud. The most 

 remarkable, however, are those that have been practised upon 

 the Linnasan Society ; in whose Transactions are two papers 

 on ornithology, bearing the name of one whom we happen to 

 know can scarcely write his own name. 



