THE LINNEAN JOUENAL 411 



others, these are promises which they do not see the moral 

 obligation of keeping, or at any rate act as if they did 

 not. None can so well help me out of the difficulty as you, 

 for you could without trouble give us both Zoological and 

 Botanical scraps ; and it is scraps we want as much as 

 papers. 



Another undated appeal (probably in 1861) reiterated his 

 own responsibility for the progress of the Journal. 



DEAR HUXLEY, I find that we are really hard up for 

 zoological matter for our Linnean Journal, which is now 

 arrived at its critical period ; so my dear fellow do not 

 desert us and give us a yarn on the Crab's inwards without 

 fail it'is almost a sin to press you to write, but I must be 

 whipper in. We have plenty of good botanical matter and 

 Lindley has rallied round us, but if zoological matter is not 

 forthcoming, the present plan of the Linnean Journal will 

 fall through and my shoulders will have to ache for it, as the 

 onus of the undertaking rests so much with me. 



I like your Museum thing 1 extremely, it is the only really 

 sound elementary introduction to understanding Geological evi- 

 dence that I have seen. I shall bring it with me on Tuesday. 



Ever yours, 



J. D. HOOKER. 



Thus the Linnean Journal came to fulfil its function as a 

 record of the natural history sciences for workers in science, 

 so far as focussed by the Society. As he wrote later, ' It is 

 a gallant Society that struggles on amongst proverbially poor 

 naturalists, spending its whole income on publications and 

 Library and giving all its publications to its members.' 2 

 The Journal was the more needed on the botanical side, as the 

 Kew Journal of Botany had for some time been going downhill. 

 The best botanists had become chary of contributing, for Sir 

 William Hooker, though unremittingly busy in his old age, had 

 grown careless and uncritical in his editing, and his son had no 



1 ' Preliminary Essay upon the Systematic Arrangement of the Fishes of 

 the?Devonian Epoch,' Mem. Geol. Surv. of U.K., 1861. 

 Nk a To Mr. Bolus, Feb. 4, 1873, who sought election to the Linnean (see 

 ii. 4). 



