Another _habitué_ of Mr. Peale’s house, and a frequent attendant at the meetings of the society, was Charles Lucien Bonaparte, Prince de Canino. He was the nephew and son-in-law of Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain, and while in America resided in a house on the estate of his uncle, near Bordentown, New Jersey. This young prince pursued his studies in ornithology in the United States, making important contributions to the works of Wilson. A man of wide scientific knowledge, and a member of nearly all the learned societies of Europe, the Prince de Canino gave a decided impulse to the study of natural history in Italy, which was his home, and while in Philadelphia was an active and interested member of the Philosophical Society, contributing original papers and making valuable donations of books to its library. A few women of distinguished ability have been, early and late, members of the Philosophical Society: notably Mary Somerville, the English astronomer; Professor Maria Mitchell, of Vassar; Mrs. Louis Agassiz, and Madame Emma Seiler. The earliest woman member was the Russian Princess Daschkof, lady-in-waiting to the Empress Catherine II. A great traveller, for those days, the princess profited by all that she saw and heard in the countries which she visited. A student and an observer, the friend of Diderot in France, and associating in Edinburgh with such men as Dr. Blair, Adam Smith, and Ferguson, she returned to Russia to become director of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and later to establish another academy for the improvement and cultivation of the Russian language. Of the manner in which the news of her election to the Philosophical Society reached her, the princess says,--