6112 



Entomological Society. 



business point of view, may be worth fifteen or twenty years' purchase, and T suppose 

 this is your notion of the duration of the Society since its fall. I see no further 

 analogy between a public and a private collection. One is knoivn to be of short 

 duration, the other is supposed to belong to the future. My collection is my own, to 

 dispose of as I please ; yours was entailed and left to you in trust: mine, when I am 

 done with it, will, I hope, be placed in the hands of those who have more regard for 

 the feelings of others than the Council of the Entomological have shown. 



You attempt to connect me, as an M.E.S., with the misdeeds of the Council. 

 The fourteen days' notice of the sale, when the collection was already doomed and at 

 the sale-room, was— or my memory fails me— the only notice which, as a member of the 

 Society, I have ever had of the intentions of the Council, and this notice was sent me 

 not by them, but by the auctioneers. Of the years of discussion of which you speak 

 I have never heard one syllable, except by rumour. Until that fourteen days' notice 

 was given my belief was that the better feelings of the Council had prevailed, 

 and that the rumoured sale had been considered, as it ought to have been, an 

 impossibility. 



I am yours very truly, 



W. C. Hewitson. 



Reply to the preceding hy Dr. Gray, 



British Museum, May 12, 1858. 



My dear Mr. Hewitson, 



I have this moment received from you a note, without date, respecting 

 the sale of the Society's collection, and as you inform me that you have sent it to 

 Mr. Newman, as you did the former note, before it reached my hands, I reply through 

 the same channel. I cannot agree with you that the Society has done anything 

 "which is neither lawful nor right;" but I believe that they have acted in a most 

 proper, regular and legal manner throughout, and with your implied sanction. 



It is true that the Society hold the collection and other property in trust for the 

 benefit of the members at large ; but the trust has nothing to do with the persons who 

 have presented specimens to the Society without any condition or reservation of any 

 kind. I think you overlook the fact that the members of the Society who do not 

 attend the meetings of the Society when duly invited are bound by the acts of those 

 that do attend, and that you cannot excuse yourself because you have neglected your 

 duties as a member. 



My dear Sir, 



Ever yours truly, 



J. E. Gray. 



Remarks on Dr. Grays Note (Zool. 6070). 



To the Editor of the * Zoologist.' 



Will you allow me to protest against the doctrine laid down in Dr. J. E. 

 Gray's letter (Zool. 6070), viz, that public bodies stand on the same footing as indi- 

 viduals, with respect to the right of converting into money objects of Natural History 

 that have been presented to them. Surely there must be general concurrence in Mr. 



