172 7 HE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON xm 



must be confessed, as new difficulties, the extent of which 

 we are only beginning to appreciate. The definite systems 

 of classification and methods of nomenclature on which our 

 fathers relied utterly fail before the wider field of vision which 

 it is the privilege, as well as the embarrassment, of the present 

 generation of zoologists to realise. 



But it is no part of my intention, in the brief space of 

 time for which I shall ask your patience, to attempt to give a 

 history of the recent advances of zoological science in general, 

 but only, as requested by your Council, to say a few words on 

 the progress of the particular Institution established for its 

 cultivation in which we are personally interested, and the 

 duration of which is so nearly contemporaneous with that of 

 Her Majesty's reign. 



Before this Society was founded there was no distinct 

 organisation in the country devoted solely to collecting, 

 recording, and discussing the facts upon which zoological 

 science rests. The dignified parent of all our scientific 

 societies, the Royal, certainly undertook, as it does still, the 

 discussion of many zoological subjects ; but it could not be 

 expected to treat them in any detail. The Linnsean was 

 a society of great respectability, devoted solely to biological 

 research, both zoological and botanical, already nearly forty 

 years of age, and possessed of all the usual appurtenances of a 

 scientific organisation meetings, library, and collections for 

 reference. I cannot help thinking that if its leading Fellows 

 had, at that time, displayed more energy, it might have kept 

 in its hands the principal direction of the biological studies 

 of the country, instead of allowing what has since proved so 

 formidable a rival to spring up, and to absorb so large a 

 portion of its useful functions. However, for reasons which 

 it is perhaps not worth while to inquire into now, it did not 

 supply all the needs of the lovers of Zoology ; and in the 

 year 1826 an active and zealous band united together, and, 

 as the Charter tells us, " subscribed and expended considerable 

 sums of money for the purpose" of founding the Zoological 

 Society of London. 



The leading spirit of this band was Sir Stamford Baffles, 

 then just returned from the administration of those Eastern 



