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and a small portion of the funds of every Society would be well 

 employed in defraying the cost. I will say nothing of the collateral 

 advantages which would flow from such reunions, in making scientific 

 men of different nations known to one another ; hut of this be well 

 assured, that nothing, however seemingly trivial, which promotes good 

 fellowship between neighbouring states, nothing, however transitory 

 in its duration, which brings men of different nations together in 

 friendly and social converse on subjects of a neutral character, and 

 altogether alien from topics which powerfully excite human passions, 

 can fail to exercise a most salutary influence in preserving peaceful 

 relations and promoting the prosperity of the whole human race. 



The time has now arrived when many considerations might induce 

 me to resign the trust you have done me the honour to confide to 

 me into your hands, but many important matters which have been 

 undertaken since this distinguished office was conferred on me still 

 remain unsettled ; and in particular the decision of that interesting 

 question, to which I have directed your attention, I mean the relations 

 which ought to subsist between Government and Science, still hangs 

 on the balance. As it was principally with a view of assisting in 

 improving, if possible, those relations that I consented to accept 

 an honour to which I felt myself unequal, so I hope to be enabled to 

 prove, before I resign it, that on one important subject at least I have 

 not laboured in vain. 



The Copley Medal has been awarded to Professor Henry Milne- 

 Edwards, who ranks by common consent as the most eminent living 

 representative of the French School of Natural History ; being distin- 

 guished alike for his extensive knowledge of Comparative Anatomy 

 and Physiology, as well as of Zoology, and for the amount and value 

 of his original contributions to these sciences. His whole career 

 evinces the truly philosophic spirit in which he has laboured ; and 

 it would be difficult to name any existing Naturalist who has prose- 

 cuted his researches with equal success over so very wide a range of 

 investigation. 



Although Professor Milne-Edwards has furnished many valuable 

 additions to our knowledge of the Vertebrated classes, yet it has 

 been to the Invertebrata that his chief attention has been given ; 

 and in each of the three Cuvierian sub-kingdoms Articulata, Mol- 



