THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 75 



of the Chanticleer, and the whole of that brought home by 

 Captain King, of the Adventure, during the three years' survey 

 of the southern coast of Patagonia. Darwin, too, was a generous 

 donor, though he seems to have had some difficulty in 

 placing his collections. He wrote, somewhat despondingly, 

 to Henslow : 



I do not even find that the Collectors care for receiving the unnamed 

 specimens. The Zoological Museum [in Bruton Street] is nearly full, and 

 upwards of a thousand specimens remain unmounted. I daresay the 

 British Museum would receive them, but I cannot feel, from all I hear, any 

 great respect even for the present state of that establishment.* 



All the prominent Fellows contributed liberally, and it was 

 the custom to chronicle donations in the annual Report, in the 

 same way as gifts to the Menagerie were recorded. Two skins 

 of the kiwi presented by the New Zealand Association in 1837, 

 and the body of a bird of the same species, sent by Lord Derby 

 in the same year, deserve special mention. 



The house had to serve as offices ; meetings were held there, 

 and it was also used as a prosectorium. In Mrs. Owen's Diary, 

 under date January 5, 1836, there is the entry: " Richard went to 

 Bruton Street to cut up an ostrich." f And from the Council's 

 Report presented at the Anniversary Meeting in that year it 

 appears that the crowded condition of the rooms where the 

 specimens were exhibited gave them "rather the confused air 

 of a store than the appearance of an arranged museum." As 

 a consequence the exhibition was less attractive than it had 

 been in the early years of its establishment. 



A larger house. No. 28, Leicester Square,J was taken, in 1836, 

 for offices and the Museum, and the transfer was made by the 

 end of June. The house was formerly occupied by John Hunter, 

 and contained his famous museum, now in the keeping of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons. Of that great collection Owen and 

 Flower were both Conservators, though not in direct succession, 

 for Quekett's short term of office intervened; and both had 

 charge of the national zoological collections, the one as Super- 

 intendent, the other as Director. 



* ''Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," i. 273. 

 t " Life of Richard Owen," i. 92. 

 X The Alhambra stands on the site. 



