Foundation of the Zoological Club. 7 



^to the Old World and the New, while others occupy a more 

 limited station ; some have as it were their metropolis, from 

 which as they recede, they become gradually less numerous. 

 Some again that are found inhabiting the plains of a cold country, 

 take their station on the mountains of a warmer one. Every 

 quarter or principal district of the globe has likewise its peculiar 

 types, so that a practised zoologist can often lay his finger upon 

 an animal that he never saw before, and say confidently. This is 

 of jJsiatic origin — this of African — this of American — this of 

 Australasian : and even in cases where creatures from these 

 countries are apparently synonymous with those of Europe^ there 

 is, not unfrequently, a note of diflFerence, that speaks their exotic 

 hirth. As the importance of assigning their genuine country to 

 our animal specimens is now universally acknowledged, it would 

 be a very useful labour, and form a very valuable communication, 

 would any gentleman, properly qualified, undertake the correction 

 of some of the numerous errors, with regard to their real habitat^ 

 that zoologists have propagated concerning the animals they have 

 described. 



I must not pass without notice another branch of our science, 

 X)f the deepest interest and highest importance, and more particu- 

 larly as we have to lament that hitherto it has been very imper- 

 fectly cultivated, especially with regard to invertebrate animals, 

 in these islands, — I mean the Comparative Anatomy of animals. 

 France, in which this science has attained to its acme, can boast 

 of her Cuvier, Savigny, Marcel de Serres, De Blainville, Chabrier, 

 and others ; Germany of her Bluraenbach, Ramdohr, Treviranus, 

 Jlerold, and a host besides ; Italy of her Malpighi, Spallanzani, 

 Scarpa, and Poll j Holland of her Swammerdam and Lyonnet : 

 but the only boast of Britain, an illustrious one indeed, nee plu- 

 ribus impar, in this department, is her Hunter ; and even he, if 

 my recollection does not fail me, employed his scalpel chiefly ou 

 the higher orders of animals. Medical gentlemen who cultivate 

 .this province have usually, perhaps, the human subject too much 

 in their view, and do not always recollect, that to compare one of 

 the lower animals with this, without making a gradual approach 

 to it by the study of the structure of the intervening groups, mus^ 



