PREFACE 



The present state of science in Britain, the usual subject of 

 our preface, has recently been discussed by powerful writers ;^ 

 and has drawn from others,^ equally eminent, bitter reflec- 

 tions. As reg'ards Zoolog-y, there is a great show of patro- 

 nage. Zoological gardens, and new societies have sprang 

 up : cheap publications, on popular natural history, appear 

 daily; and professors have been installed at the two Lon- 

 don Universities. Yet what has resulted ? We have lecturers 

 expounding systems they do not comprehend,^ and we have 

 professors maintaining that a walk into the fields will make 

 '''^ a very good naturalist."^ Meantime nearly every perio- 

 dical work on pure science has languished or died away. 

 The Zoological Journal has been discontinued, although 

 nominally patronized by a society enjoying an enormous 

 annual receipt. The fact, indeed, is but too apparent, that the 

 science of the country, speaking general! (/, 'has become super- 

 ficial, while "neither literature nor art has been encouraged 

 in our opulent Island, half as much as they have been by 

 some of the petty kingdoms of the Continent."^ 



But the political horizon is happily brightening, and the 

 change will ultimately affect all. The stream of national 

 patronage has long been prevented from branching off and 

 fertilizing spots, now impoverished and neglected. Natural 

 History, more than any other science, requires such aid ; 

 because it is inapplicable to the purposes of life; and while 

 its study is attended with enormous expence, its acquirement 

 leads to nothing tangible. It is a melancholy fact, that 

 while our present laws crush individual exertion, by extort- 

 ing a large number of free copies of the most costly works, 

 undertaken by their authors without the slightest hope of 

 remuneration, — the Government of France ass'igus for sub- 

 scriptions to such publications, an annual sum of c£lO,000.'' 

 But on (luestions regarding the patronage of science, Great 

 Britain, unfortunately, is poorer than any nation in Europe. 



iBabbage {On the Decline of Science), Quarterly Review; 

 c Herschel. Sir Humphrey Davy. Sir Nicholas Harris. Millcngcn. (ylxcjeni 



Coins). See also Lowdon's Natural His. Mag. Nov. 1831. p. 481. 



3 Northern Zool. 2. p. xliv. 4 Moulague's Orn.D/cf. new edition, />re/ace. 



3 Athieneum Journal, Jan. 1832. p, 32. 6 Ibid, p. 37. 



