ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



245 



know on what ground I stand, to emigrate to London, where 

 I can complete my Geology and try to push on the Zoology. 

 I assure you I grieve to find how many things make me see 

 the necessity of living for some time in this dirty, odious 

 London. For even in Geology I suspect much assistance 

 and communication will be necessary in this quarter, for in- 

 stance, in fossil bones, of which none excepting the fragments 

 of Megatherium have been looked at, and I clearly see that 

 without my presence they never would be. . . . 



" I only wish I had known the Botanists cared so much 

 for specimens * and the Zoologists so little ; the proportional 

 number of specimens in the two branches should have had 

 a very different appearance. I am out of patience with the 

 Zoologists, not because they are overworked, but for their 

 mean, quarrelsome spirit. I went the other evening to the 

 Zoological Society, where the speakers were snarling at each 

 other in a manner anything but like that of gentlemen. Thank 

 Heavens ! as long as I remain in Cambridge there will not be 

 any danger of falling into any such contemptible quarrels, 

 whilst in London I do not see how it is to be avoided. Of 

 the Naturalists, F. Hope is out of London ; Westwood I have 

 not seen, so about my insects I know nothing. I have seen 

 Mr. Yarrell twice, but he is so evidently oppressed with busi- 

 ness that it is too selfish to plague him with my concerns. 

 He has asked me to dine with the Linnean on Tuesday, and 

 on Wednesday I dine with the Geological, so that I shall see 

 all the great men. Mr. Bell, I hear, is so much occupied 

 that there is no chance of his wishing for specimens of rep- 



* A passage in a subsequent letter shows that his plants also gave him 

 some anxiety. " I met Mr. Brown a few days after you had called on him ; 

 he asked me in rather an ominous manner what I meant to do with my 

 plants. In the course of conversation Mr. Broderip, who was present, re- 

 marked to him, ' You forget how long it is since Captain King's expedi- 

 tion.' He answered, ' Indeed, I have something in the shape of Captain 

 Kings's undescribed plants to make me recollect it.' Could a better reason 

 be given, if I had been asked, by me, for not giving the plants to the Brit- 

 sh Museum?" 



