that promise to be useful to man in an alimentary,
auxiliary, industrial, or ornamental way.
Consequently, in the list of the species composing
the collection, which is sold for two sous
at the entrance gate, there are no beasts or
birds of prey; no lions, no bears, although both
might be regarded as alimentary, their flesh
being eaten; no eagles nor condors. The
society has here drawn a line which may be
convenient, but which they will find difficult to
observe. The vulture, the hyæna, and all offal–
eating creatures, are sanitary auxiliaries, and
ought, therefore, to be admitted. Untamable
species of horse are scarcely auxiliary, although
they may be alimentary to hippophagists.
Dogs, which are auxiliaries in England, are
alimentaries in China; and if the society takes
further lessons from the Flowery Land, it must
welcome choice breeds of kindly–feeding rats,
fine–flavoured earthworms and the profitable
races of cats, which combine the highest merits
of for and flesh. The ostriches of Africa and
America and the Australian cassowary are
classed as industrial (for their feathers) and
alimentary. If the pelican and three of the
kangaroos be received as alimentary, the chetah,
or hunting leopard, the fishing cormorant of
China, and the hawks employed in falconry
ought likewise to be there. But time will settle
many of these little matters, and the leading
intention is evidently good.

Not so the name selected by the society, which
is unfortunate and open to great objection; for
it assumes the settlement in its favour of a most
important and disputed point. What is acclimatation?
and is there such a thing as acclimatation,
in the obvious and literal sense of the
word? The theoretic naturalists of the old
generation say that there is; they hold that
man, by his "cares," his arts, and his what–not,
is able so to modify the constitution of plants
and animals, as to make them support, in a new
country, conditions which they could not bear
at home; that he can, consequently, suit their
constitutions to the country to which it may
please him to transfer them. This would be true
acclimatation; and when the society has made
the reindeer thrive through Parisian summers,
and the castor–oil plant resist the winters of La
Beauce, they may enjoy their title uncavilled at.
Others hold that the so–called process of
acclimatising is merely the testing how much cold
and heat, how much exposure, drought, or hunger,
an animal's or a plant's constitution will bear. A
new flower, the Dielytra spectabilis, is brought
from China; it is found to bear our severest
winters; but it did so from the very first. We
have only tested, not increased its hardiness.
Another flower, the heliotrope, is introduced
from Peru; the slightest frost scorches it. It
has yet to be acclimatised, and we may wait a
long time for that consummation. Pheasants
and peafowl from the Himalayas and Japan are
easily acclimatised here, because they were really
acclimatised before they came; but all the
learned societies in Europe cannot make a
colony of love–birds take to the Black Forest as
a winter residence. A regiment of soldiers are
sent to occupy a pestilential marsh; three–
fourths of them die of fever. The survivors,
men of iron constitution, are said to be inured
to the climate, or to be acclimatised. In all
these cases, there is a confusion of a result with
a cause. A society of naturalisation would
excite no criticism. An Englishman is
naturalised in France; British weeds are
naturalised in New Zealand; cocks and hens are
naturalised nearly all the world over. The
common nasturtium, or Tropæolum majus, with
us a tender annual from South America, where
it is perennial and woody–stemmed, is naturalised
in European gardens, because it produces
abundant seeds which retain (as seeds ripened
in Mexico would retain) their vitality through
European winters. The plant itself remains as
tender as ever; it is naturalised, not acclimatised.

The first president of the new society is M.
Isidore Geoffroy Saint–Hilaire, the worthy son
of the celebrated Etienne Geoffroy Saint–Hilaire.
A fixed idea with the association seems to be
the power of man in modifying nature to the
benefit of the whole community of mankind.
They quote Buffon's saying, that man is not
sufficiently aware either of nature's capabilities,
or of man's influence over nature. They
institute a committee of climatology, who are to
study the mode of intervention of meteorological
phenomena in the acclimatation of animals
and plants. They vote a medal (well deserved)
to Commandant Maury of the National Observatory,
Washington, for his climatological labours,
which appear to have a direct bearing on
the society's objects.

A portion of the Bois de Boulogne having
been granted by the City of Paris, for the
formation of a garden of applied zoology, its
direction was confided to Mr. Mitchell, for many
years the able secretary to the Regent's–park
Garden. It was no easy task to remodel the
plan with which he was familiar at home, and to
arrange a collection of animals which should
include those only from which we may expect to
benefit by their strength, their flesh, their wool,
or any other products that can be made available
in agriculture, the arts, manufactures, or
commerce, comprising even those whose utility
is only of a secondary degree, as subservient to
our recreative pleasures, in the way of ornament,
the chase, or familiar pets. The landscape
gardening and the buildings were in full
activity when they were temporarily checked by
Mr. Mitchell's sudden death. A provisional
committee, however, was named, and its secretary,
M. Albert Geoffroy Saint–Hilaire, continued
the works of the establishment. The
City of Paris gave water for the ponds;
habitations were built for deer, antelopes, mouflons,
bouquetins, chamois, Angora goats, lamas, and
alpacas. A handsome magnanerie, or silkworm–
house, was erected, so arranged as to allow
visitors to inspect the insects without touching
them. Around it are plantations of mulberry,
ailanthus, oak, and, in summer, beds of the
castor–oil plant.