1 88 



NA TURE 



{yune 23, 1887 



may be well, perhaps, that some of them should be tried again 

 when favourable opportunities occur ; but it is also well that we 

 should recognize the almost insuperable difficulties that must 

 attend the attempt to introduce a new animal able to compete in 

 useful qualities with those which, as is the case with all our 

 limited number of domestic animals, have gradually acquired 

 the peculiarities making them valuable to man, by the accumula- 

 tion of slight improvements through countless generations 

 of ancestors. While all our pressing wants are so well 

 supplied by the animals we already possess, it can no longer pay 

 to begin again at the beginning with a new species. This 

 appears to be the solution of the singular fact, scarcely 

 sufficiently appreciated, that no addition of any practical import- 

 ance has been made to our stock of truly domestic animals 

 since the commencement of the historic period of man's life upon 

 the earth. 



I now turn to the history of one of the most important features 

 , of the Society, the scientific meetings. In the early days of the 

 Society there was only one class of general meetings for business 

 of all kinds ; and the exhibition of specimens and the communi- 

 cation of notices on subjects of zoological interest formed part of 

 the ordinary proceedings at those meetings. The great extent, 

 however, of the general business was soon found to interfere 

 with such an arrangement. The number of the elections and of 

 the recommendations of candidates, the reports on the progress 

 of the Society in its several establishments during each month, 

 and other business, were found to require so much time as to 

 leave little for scientific communications, and the Council saw 

 with regret that these were frequently and necessarily postponed 

 to matters of more pressing but less permanent interest. To 

 obviate this inconvenience and to afford opportunities for the 

 reception and discussion of communications upon zoological 

 subjects, the Council had recourse to the institution of a " Com- 

 mittee of Science and Correspondence," composed of such 

 Members of the Society as had principally applied themselves to 

 science ; at the meetings of which communications upon zoological 

 subjects might be received and discussed, and occasional selec- 

 tions made for the purpose of publication. 



The first meeting of the Committee took place on the evening 

 of Tuesday, November 9, 1830, at the Society's house in 

 Bruton Street, when a communication was received upon the 

 anatomy of the urang utan by a young, and then unknown, 

 naturalist, Richard Owen by name, the first of that long series of 

 memoirs, extending over a period of more than fifty years, the 

 publication of which in our Transactions has done so much to 

 advance the knowledge of comparative anatomy and to give an 

 illustrious place to their author in the annals of science. 



Among the names of others who are mentioned as having 

 taken part in the business of the Committee during the first year 

 of its existence, either by their actual presence or by forwarding 

 communications, are N. A. Vigors, W. Yarrell, J. E. Gray, 

 J. Gould, E. T. Bennett, Andrew Smith, T. Bell, W. Martin, 

 Joshua Brookes, W. Kirby, W. H. Sykes, Marshall Hall, W. 

 Ogil^y> John Richardson, and B. H. Hodgson, who, I am 

 happy to say, is with us at the meeting to day. 



The Committee continued in existence for two years, having 

 met for the last time on December 11, 1832. The success of 

 its meetings was so great that it was thought desirable to make 

 an alteration in the by-laws, by which the meetings of the 

 Committee were replaced by the "General Meetings of the 

 Society for Scientific Business." The first of these meetings 

 took place on Tuesday, January 8, 1833, and they have con- 

 tinued to be held on two Tuesdays in each month during the 

 season to the present time. As long as the Society retained its 

 house in Bruton Street, the meetings were held there. In 1843 

 the Society took another house, which it occupied for forty-one 

 years, No. 11 Hanover Square; but its needs having outgrown 

 the accommodation afforded there, it removed in 1844 to the far 

 more spacious and commodious premises, in No. 3 of the same 

 square, which we at present occupy. These meetings of the 

 Society, which are open to all the Fellows and to friends intro- 

 duced by them, have exercised a considerable influence upon the 

 progress of zoological knowledge, not only by the reading and 

 discussing of communications formally brought before them, but 

 also by the interchange of ideas at the informal social gatherings 

 over the coffee-table in the library afterwards, which have great 

 value as affording a common meeting-ground and bond of union 

 for all the working zoologists of the country, as well as of many 

 visitors from foreign lands. 



The more important scientific communications to these 



meetings have from the commencement been published in the 

 form of quarto Transactions and octavo Proceedings, which 

 constitute a series of inestimable importance both for the value 

 of the material contained in them and for the excellence of the 

 illustrations of new or rare forms of animal life with which they 

 are eoibellished. In later times they have also formed a vehicle 

 for communicating to the world the important results obtained 

 from the dissection of animals which have died at the Gardens, 

 and which, since the establishment of the office of Prosector in 

 1865, have been systematically used for this purpose. 



In connexion with the scientific meetings must be mentioned 

 the Library, the first formation of which is described in the 

 Report of the Council for the year 1837, and which has been 

 steadily growing ever since by donations of books, by exchange 

 of publications with other learned Societies, and by judicious 

 annual expenditure of money, to be one of the best-selected, 

 well-arranged, and most accessible collections of works of 

 reference that it is po-sible for the zoological student to enjoy. Its 

 value has been greatly increased by the publication within the 

 past month of an excellent Catalogue, which contains the titles 

 of about 6560 pub'ications 



The most recent addition to the functions that the Society has 

 undertaken with a view to carry out the purposes of its founda- 

 tion is the publication of an Annual Record of Zoological 

 Literature, containing a summary of the work done by British 

 and foreign naturalivts in the various branches of zoology in 

 each year, a publication of the utmost value to the working 

 zoologist. Such a Record has been carried on for some years 

 past by a voluntary association of naturalists, but, owing to the 

 difficulties met with in obtaining sufficient support, it was in 

 danger of being abandoned, until the Council, after the full con- 

 sideration which the importance of the subject deserved, resolved 

 to take it in hand as part of the operations of the Society. 



The Society has, however, not only been mindful of advancing 

 scientific knowledge^ — it has also endeavoured to spread some of 

 this knowledge in a popular manner by means of lectures. In 

 former years these were only given in an occasional manner ; 

 but the liberal bequest of Mr. Alfred Davis to the Society in 

 1870 has enabled the Council to undertake a more regular and 

 systematic method of instruction ; and the Fellows and others 

 have had every summer for several years past the opportunity ol 

 hearing many of our most eminent naturalists and able expositors 

 upon subjects which they have made especially their own. 1 

 must, however, confess that the interest taken by the Society 

 generally in these lectures has not quite equalled the expectations 

 that were raised when the question of establishing them was first 

 brought before the notice of the Council. 



Although, as will be seen by a consideration of the various 

 subjects which I have already referred to, the Society has a wide 

 sphere of operations and many methods by which the objects ol 

 its founders are carried out, it is undoubtedly the maintenance 

 of the menagerie of living animals in the Gardens where we are 

 now assembled, by which it is most known both to the public a; 

 well as to a large number of our Fellows. It will be well, 

 therefore, before concluding, to add a fev/ words upon some 

 points of interest connected with the past history and present 

 condition of this branch of the Society's operations, the one 

 which is at the same time the largest source of its revenue anc 

 cause of its expenditure. 



The collection and exhibition of rare and little-known living 

 animals has long been a subject of interest and instruction ir 

 civilized communities, and in many countries either the State 

 or the Sovereign has considered it as part of their duty 01 

 privilege to maintain a more or less perfect establishment o 

 the kind. 



Before the Zoological Society was formed, the "lions" al 

 the Tower had been for centuries a national institution ; and i 

 may be interesting to those who derive pleasure in tracing the 

 links between the present and the past, to be reminded that ou) 

 collection is in soirie measure a lineal continuation of that time 

 honoured institution, as it appears from the Reports of the 

 Council that in the year 1831 His Majesty King William the 

 Fourth "was graciously pleaseel to present to the Society al 

 the animals belonging to the Crown lately maintained a 

 the Towei-." It is also recorded that in the previous year Hi; 

 Majesty had made a munificent donation of the whole of the 

 animals belonging to the Royal Menagerie kept in Windsoi 

 Park. This may perhaps be the place to mention that, in the 

 Keport read April 1837, the Council "had the gratification tc 

 call the special attention of the members to aelonation from Hei 



