356 Miscellaneous. [June, 



[The manuscript was subsequently withdrawn by the author, for separate pub- 

 lication.] 



Observations on Organic Fossil appearances of a peculiar nature found 



in Kemaon, by the same author, were also submitted. 



VIII . — Miscellaneous. 

 I. Proposal to publish, by Subscription, an IllustratedWorkon the Zoology of Nipal. 



It is impossible to advert to the perishable, varying, and complex phenomena 

 of animation, without a deep impression of the disadvantages under which 

 zoological research, has heretofore been conducted, from an almost total disunion 

 of opportunity, and of the skill to make a proper use of it. Mineralogy, and even 

 Botany, may be easily and effectually prosecuted through the medium of 

 materials collected in one country, and used in another and remote one ; 

 because these materials are subject to no, or to small deterioration ; because 

 their bulk is limited, and their character fixed. Hence probably the rapid 

 progress of these sciences, owing to the ample and effectual means of illustrat- 

 ing them which the learned of Europe have been able to draw from all 

 quarters of the world. The case is very different in regard to Zoology. 

 The transport to Europe of live animals, even birds, is difficult and expensive : 

 the observation of habits, manners, and economy can only be made on the spot, 

 with the advantage (never possessed by travelling collectors) of much time and 

 recurring opportunity : the characteristic form and corporeal habits of animals 

 evanish from the dried specimen, which besides can tell little or nothing truly 

 of those numerous changes to which the living individual is subject from age, 

 from sex, and from season : lastly, it is not possible without abundance of fresh 

 specimens, continuously supplied and used without delay, either to fix the real 

 external character of species amid the changes just adverted to, or to ascertain, 

 even summarily, their internal structure. 



True it is, that from the external conformation of the hard and imperishable 

 parts of dried animal specimens, that of the internal and untransportable parts 

 may be inferred: true it is, that from the unknown genus or family, the unknown 

 figure may be conjectured. But who that has been never so little imbued with 

 the Baconian principles of investigation will be content to substitute analogical 

 induction for plain fact, when the latter is accessible ? and who that has turned 

 his attention never so slightly to works of natural history, is unaware that this 

 inductive process has resulted too often in monstrous disfiguration of the forms 

 of animals, and in serious errors relative to their internal structure, habits, and 

 economy ? The scientific men of Europe have made the best use possible of 

 their miserably defective materials : but they are precisely the persons who 

 deplore the defect of those materials, and its necessary consequences, viz. the 

 multiplication of imaginary species, and the continuance of a wretched system of 

 arrangement, calling every year more imperatively for revision, and yet incapable 

 of being remoulded, without a knowledge of the internal, as well as external, 

 structure, the habits, and economy, as well as true forms, of the actual species, 

 in their mature and perfect development. 



A gentleman who has been, for some years past, fixed in a favorable situation 

 for observing nature, with more leisure than usually falls to the lot of the 



