36 
this country, or, tliat the Society eatablished for this purpose will 
be able to make a very large gap in the 140,000 animids mentioned 
in M. Geoffrey Saint Hilaire’s list, but as I have to treat on a 
subject as a whole, 1 should be failing in my duty if, to a large 
and highly educated audience, I did not endeavour to lift up the 
veil which secures that great panorama with which w^e are every¬ 
where surrounded, to point out with the rod of experience those 
living creatures -which actual experiment had positively proved 
and demonstrated could live and multiply their species in our own 
favoured land, or to suggest several foreign creatimes that might, 
and would most probably live, if conditions were made by the 
hand of man suitable to their welfare. 
My object lias been to show wdiat a wide field is now open for 
public as well as individual exertions, and how much is left 
unheeded which ought to be cared for. I have cast my bread 
upon the waters, in hopes that time will lead to the most important 
national results, and that we may live, one and all of us, to carry 
out as far as in us lies, that great command which was given to 
our first parents, and from them to ourselves, by the great Creator 
himself, to have “ dominion over the fish of the sea and over the 
fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the 
earth.” 
