THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 19.] _ SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 1856. [Price lti. 
NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
There are many of these societies scat- 
tered about the country, and many we 
fancy are now in progress of formation. 
Under these circumstances we propose to 
turn our attention to the best mode of 
their construction and action, so as to 
render them at the same time both use- 
ful and agreeable. 
What in the first place is the proposed 
object of a Natural History Society? 
We presume it is that persons residing 
in a district with similar tastes may meet 
and communicate their ideas to each 
other, and that those in whom such 
tastes are only latent may have them de- 
veloped by the genial fostering of kin- 
dred spirits. 
Then how, in the second place, does 
the embryo Society propose to effect 
these objects ? 
This may be done in several distinct 
modes: in the first place the Society 
may hold periodical meetings (monthly 
or otherwise), and at those meetings 
communications from the learned mem- 
bers may be read for the benefit of those 
who are not so far advanced: in the 
second place the Society may proceed to 
form a collection or museum, a step in 
which, however, they should proceed 
with great caution, as if the collection 
be a good one it must entail great ex- 
pense, whereas if it be a bad one it may 
be of little or no use. Many of the 
members of the Society probably have 
collections of their own of different 
branches of Natural History, and by 
some little arrangement it may be so 
contrived that their private collections 
shall be accessible at stated times, so 
that those who wish to see them or refer 
to them can do so without feeling that 
they encroach on the privacy of the 
proprietor. And mind you, as a rule, a 
private collection will be in better order, 
in better preservation, and more in- 
structive than any public collection, 
which it is, perhaps, nobody’s business to 
keep in order, and for which, perhaps, 
nobody can be blamed if it is not in 
order. 
In the third place we should strongly 
recommend that the Society during the 
summer months should have a limited 
number of field-days, days when a num- 
ber of the members meet and ramble 
over hill and dale, through forest and 
fen. Such excursions are especially 
attractive to the young; and though you 
must not expect an Edward Forbes in 
every small provincial Natural History 
Society, these trips through Nature’s re- 
cesses may frecpiemly prove vastly in- 
structive. We purposely recommend 
only a limited number of these excur- 
sions, for the fewer they are the better 
chance they have of being well attended* 
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