362 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
The late Lord Braybrooke, to whom the world is indebted for 
the ‘ Diary,’ has prefixed a sketch of Pepys’ life, in which some 
stress is laid upon his literary attainments, which had raised him 
in 1684 to the high station of President of the Royal Society,* and 
which he held for two years; and at the present time the opinion 
prevails that Pepys was a much more considerable person than the 
ordinary reader of the ‘ Diary’ might suppose him to be. How far he 
merited the character of a man of letters and science, the following 
extracts, perhaps, will not do much to show. His claims to so 
exalted a position must rest upon a basis altogether different to 
that disclosed in the ‘ Diary.’ Be this as it may, it is the purpose 
of this article to exhibit Pepys as he wrote himself down; firstly, 
as a reporter of facts pertaining to Natural History and Science, 
imparted to him in conversations with his acquaintance; and next 
as a Fellow of the Royal Society, when that now deservedly 
famous corporation became an established fact. The quaintness, 
rising almost to simplicity, with which these details are recorded 
in no respect detracts from their amusing quality. 
Commencing, then, with an entry under date September 11th, 
1661, we read :— 
“To Dr. Williams, who did show me how a dog that he hath do kill 
all the cats that come thither to kill his pigeons, and do afterwards bury 
them; and do it with so much care that they shall be quite covered; 
that if the tip of the tail hangs out, he will take up the cat again, and 
dig the hole deeper. Which is very strange; and he tells me that he do 
believe that he hath killed above 100 cats.”—Vol. i., p. 219. 
Perhaps in the present day the matter-of-fact Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would have had something to say 
to Dr. Williams. 
On May 28rd, 1661:—* At table I had very good discourse with 
Mr. Ashmole, wherein he did assure me that frogs and many insects 
do often fall from the sky ready formed.”—Vol. i., p. 202. 
It is difficult to say whose credulity is here most to be admired, 
that of Samuel Pepys or Mr. Ashmole, who, better known as an 
antiquary and hereafter as founder of the Museum at Oxford bearing 
his name, had probably strayed away from the strict line of his 
usual studies. 
* Pepys became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1665, soon after it, had received 
its charter from Charles II. 
_—— 
