16 TEE ZOOLOGIOAL SOCIETY. 



It is well known with respect to most of the Animal Tribes, that 

 domestication is a process which requires time ; that the offspring of 

 wild animals raised in a domestic state are more easily tamed than their 

 parents ; and that in a certain number of generations the effect is made 

 permanent, and connected with a change, not merely in the habits but 

 even in the nature of the animal. The inconveniences of migration may 

 be, in certain cases, prevented, and the wildest animals, when supplied 

 abundantly with food, may lose the instinct of locomotion, and their 

 offspring acquire new habits ; and it is known that a breed, fairly 

 domesticated, is with difficulty brought back to its original state 

 Should the Society flourish and succeed, it will not only be useful in 

 common life, but would likewise promote the best and most extensive 

 objects of the Scientific History of Animated Nature, and offer a collection 

 of living animals such as never yet existed in ancient or modern times* 

 Rome, at the period of her greatest splendour, brought savage monsters 

 from every quarter of the world then known, to be shown in her 

 amphitheatres, to destroy or be destroyed as spectacles of wonder to 

 her citizens. It would well become Britain to offer another, and a very 

 different series of exhibitions to the population of her metropolis ; namely, 

 animals brought from every part of the globe to be applied either to 

 some useful purpose, or as objects of scientific research, not of vulgar 

 admiration. Upon such an institution a philosophy of Zoology may be 

 founded, pointing out the comparative anatomy, the habits of life, the 

 improvement and the methods of multiplying those races of animals 

 which are most useful to man, and thus fixing a most beautiful and 

 important branch of knowledge on the permanent basis of direct 

 utility. 



March 1st, 1825. 



A few days after the date of this prospectus, Sir Stamford 

 wrote to his cousin, the Rev. Thomas Raffles, D.D., of Liverpool, 

 on the subject. 



LowEE Geosvenor Street, March 9, 1825. 

 I am much interested at present in establishing a grand zoological 

 collection in the metropolis, with a Society for the introduction of living 

 animals, bearing the same relations to Zoology as a science, that the 

 Horticultural Society does to Botany. The prospectus is drawn out, and 

 when a few copies are printed I will send some to you. We hope to have 

 2,000 subscribers at £2 each ; and it is further expected we may go far 

 beyond the Jardin des Plantes at Paris. Sir Humphry Davy* and myself 

 are the projectors, and while he looks more to the practical and immediate 

 utility to the country gentlemen, my attention is more directed to the 

 scientific department-! 



* This appears conclusive evidence against the view that Sir Stamford EaflSes 

 was the sole founder. 



t " Memoir of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles," pp. 592, 693. 



