a specimen which has never been seen Griffith, Edward, F.L.S., and others: ginal matter. London. 8vo, many plates. Parts I. to XV. The value of the original work of Cuvier is well established; the duty of the reviewer, therefore, is to ascertain the fidelity of the translation, and the merits of the additional descriptions. It would have given us pleasure could we have bestowed on the correctness of the translation unqualified praise; but justice requires us to say, that, though it generally conveys to the English reader a sufficiently clear view of the author's meaning, there are several parts in which the sense is imperfectly or very incorrectly given. For instance, p. 26 of the translation: -"Vegetables derive their nourishment from the SUN, and from the circumfluent atmosphere in the form of water," &c. Cuvier says, " the sOIL and the atmosphere present to plants for their nourishment, water," &c. "Le sol" may, doubtless, be either the sun or the soil, but the obvious meaning of the author might have directed the translator which word to choose; and, more particularly, as, in the preceding page, there occurs nearly the same passage: "l'atmosphère et la terre apportent aux végétaux des sucs," &c. In page 22. of the translation, we find the following remarkable error: "All organised beings produce their like, otherwise death would be a necessary consequence of life, and the species must become extinct." This passage is utterly unintelligible, or, to speak more plainly, the extreme of absurdity. The author has before stated that death is a necessary consequence of the continued action of life on the animal frame; and the sentence so improperly translated, refers to this action on the vital organs. "Tous les êtres organisés produisent leur semblables, autrement la mort étant une suite nécessaire de la vie, leurs espèces ne pourraient subsister." Nothing can be more clearly expressed, or inore easy to translate literally:-"All organised beings produce their like; were it not so, death being a necessary consequence of vital action, the species must become extinct." We might quote other errors in the translation of the first sixty pages, for which it would be difficult to account, except by supposing that the translation has been made from an inaccurate copy of the original. The notes and the original matter of the translator and his colabórateurs, have greatly increased the bulk of the work; and the number of the engravings have greatly enhanced its price; the latter, at least, without any thing like proportionately adding to its value. The plan of getting up the book has not been properly digested before it was commenced. If engravings were to be given, either every species described ought to have been figured, or only one species of each order, tribe, or genus; or only such figures as were necessary to illustrate technicalities. Instead of this, we have numerous genera, of which a single figure is not given of any one of the species; while of other genera, copperplates are engraved of several of the species. This indefinite, unsystematic mode of giving illus trative engravings, publishers will, in time, learn to avoid, from the necessity which they will find of accommodating their productions to the present improved state of the public judgment in books, called forth, in a great measure, by an increased taste for reading, and the diminished means of procuring this gratification. We can see no occasion for engravings on copper to illustrate a work like the present; had the figures been on wood, they would have been nearly as expressive, or, at least, sufficiently so for every useful purpose, as that which we now give of the Geoffroy's Shrike (fig. 143.) will show to those who can compare it with the copperplate from which it was copied in Part XV. They could have been printed along with the descriptions, and more readily compared with them; and, had they been limited to the type species of each genus, the work would have been much more complete, and, we should think, not near so high priced. There is also an omission which de tracts from the value of the work. As the system of Cuvier is founded on the physiology of animals, there ought to have been plates given of those parts of the osteology of vertebrated animals which form the distinctive characters. They are not given in the original work of Cuvier, because it was intended to form a cheap text-book, and the reader is supposed to have access to the museums of Paris, and to extensive libraries of natural history; but in a work which will be ten times the price of the original, they ought to have been added. We regret to be obliged to make these objections, and should have been much better pleased to have given the work entire instead of qualified approbation. As a principal object of the last number of this Magazine was to impress on the mind of the young reader the terminologyofbirds, we shall here copy from Mr. Griffith's work an engraving which exemplifies that terminology in a very judicious manner.(fig.144) a, Maxilla, the upper part of t, Cervix, hinder part of the the bill. g, Nares, the nostrils. d, Dertrum, the hook. c, Culmen, the ridge. Mesorrinium, ridge. the upper i, Lorum, naked line at the base. b, Mandibulæ, lower part of the bill. h, Menuon, the chin. e, Gouys, inferior point of the mandible. j, Frons, front of the head. k, Capistrum, the face. 7, Vertex, crown of the head. m, Sinciput, hinder part of the head. o, Regio ophthalmica, region of the eye. n, Supercilium, the eyebrow. P, Tempora, the temples. 9, Gena, the cheeks. neck. u, Nucha, nape of the neck. r, Regio parotica, protuberance w, Guttur, the throat. y, Jugulum, lower throat. A, Interscapulum, between the B, Tergum, middle of the back. v, Rectrices, tail feathers: In- J, Ala, the wing. o, Remiges, the oars. K, Tectrices, wing-covers. L, Majores, largest wing-covers. vers. R, Humeri, shoulders. s, Flexura, the bend of the T, Axille, the arm-pits. D, Pectus, the breast. F, Epigastrum, stomach. z, Planta, the foot with the Y, Tarsus, the foot. a, Acrotarsium, front of the foot. b, Digiti, toes. c, Hallux, the great toe. Hogg, the Rev. John., A.M. F.L.S. and Camb. Ph. Soc.: On the Natural History of the Vicinity of Stockton on Tees. Stockton. 8vo, pp. 96, 1 map. This work is to form an appendix to the Parochial History of Stockton, by the Rev. John Brewster, now in the press. It is an excellent specimen of the local Flora, Faúna, and Geographica, and printed with very great accuracy in regard to names, synonyms, and references to established works containing descriptive and historical particulars. The use of such local catalogues is three-fold; 1. as contributing towards a more complete and accurate natural history of Britain; 2. as pointing out to the inhabitants, or to those intending to inhabit particular districts, the climate and the natural productions which they may expect to meet with, and consequently, to a certain extent, the eligibility of the situation for rural and domestic happiness; and 3. as a record by which future naturalists may determine the local changes which have taken place in natural and physical history. The catalogue begins with the birds, of which there are no fewer than 126 species, arranged according to the system of Cuvier. Of fishes there are 19 species; of insects, 67 of the most remarkable are enumerated; of fluviatile shells, 20 species; of marine animals, the Sea Scorpion, or Father Lasher (Cóttus Scórpius L) (fig. 145), and Ray's Toothed Gilt head (Spàrus Rài) (fig. 146.), both rare species, but the last extremely so. The first specimen of Sparus Bài found in England was sent to Mr. Ray by his friend, Mr. Johnson, a gentleman of Yorkshire, who informed him it was found on the sands near the Tees' mouth, Sept. 18. 1681. Mr. Hogg informs us that in August 1821 he saw the only one known to have been seen near the Tees since that sent to o The plants are arranged according to the natural system, and enter into 50 orders of Dicotylédones, 13 orders of Monocotylédones, and orders of Acotylédones. The geology of the vicinity of Stockton is comprised under, 1. lias; 2. red marl, or new red sand stone; 3. magnesian limestone; 4. coal measures; 5. diluvium; 6. alluvium; and 7. basaltic dykes. We should like to see gardeners set about forming such catalogues of the natural history of their masters' estates, or of the parish in which they live. Mr. Wood, of Deepdene, is well qualified for forming such a catalogue, and we hope he will set the example. Vigors, N. A., Esq. A.M. F.R.S. G.S. and M.R.I.A., Secretary of the Zoological Society, Editor, with the cooperation of several distinguished Naturalists: The Zoological Journal, No. XII., January to March, and No. XIII., April to July. London. 8vo. 10s. coloured; 7s. 6d. plain. In these two numbers are some very interesting papers, most of them strictly scientific, and not of sufficient interest to attract the general reader; but some of them, as Major Hardwicke's Loves of the Ants and Aphides, both scientific and amusing, and Mr. Colebrooke on Dichotomous and Quinary Arrangements in Natural History, which is at once philosophical and highly interesting. Natural orders are related to each other by so many points, that Linnæus compared them to countries in a map; but the affinities of an object, Mr. Colebrooke observes, ramify in every direction, and cannot be well represented on a plain surface. The Dichotomous mode of classification has been so represented. "It proceeds upon a selection of single characters in succession, which, taken affirmatively and negatively, furnish at each step two distinctions; one for objects_possessing the character in question, the other for such as want it. For example, at the very first step, organic and inorganic substances; and, thereafter, vertebrate and non-vertebrate animals. So, Cotyledonous and Acotyledonous vegetables; and, again, Monocotyledonous and Dicotyledonous plants. If the series in which the characters are severally noticed be judiciously chosen, the Dichotomous arrangement, well pursued, supplies a very instructive key to natural knowledge. Many professedly natural distributions have been so ordered. But a more instructive arrangement is that which exhibits an object in all its bearings; which places it amidst its cognates; and contiguous to them, again, those which approach next in degree of affinity, and thence branching every way to remoter relations." Objects or groups to be so arranged must occupy a space of three dimensions. Were the space so occupied indefinite, and round any given or imaginary point, the form of the group would be considered globular, from the same law of imagination by which the sky seems vaulted, and the universe neither square, nor long, nor angular. Hence, as five points form one of the simplest modes of expressing the centre and superficies (the two poles and the zenith and nadir of a globe), the Quinary arrangement is the simplest distribution of a large assemblage of objects. The centre group may be supposed to be the type, and the four circumferential ones so many clusters of related objects. If we imagine no perfect type, and, in consequence, the central group omitted, we shall then have the Quaternary arrangement, which, according to Ocken, a Swedish botanist, is the true natural distribution. Without entering farther into the subject, our readers will, we hope, have distinct ideas of the Dichotomous, Quinary, and Quaternary systems; and they will see that the Quinary and Quaternary are but different modes of expression for what is essentially a circular, or, more correctly, a spherical system. These and other systems we shall enter into at greater length, when we conceive our young readers to be sufficiently advanced. In the mean time, it is easy to conceive that the surface of a globe will be represented by three points more easily than by five, and by five less perfectly than by seven or twelve. So that all that seems beyond dispute in the matter is, that the most perfect abstract idea of an arrangement is that in which all the objects composing a group shall be clustered together like a sphere. It should never be forgotten that nature knows only species, and that all systems of arrangement or classification are merely attempts at generalising, for the sake of lessening the trouble of knowing the individuals. Hooker, William Jackson, LL.D. Reg. Prof. Bot. Univ. Glasg. and F.R.A. and L.S. Lond. ; and Robert Kaye Greville, LL. D. F.R. and A.S. Edinb. and L.S. London: Figures and Descriptions of Ferns, principally of such as have been altogether unnoticed by Botanists, or as have not yet been correctly figured. Fasc. V. Folio. 17. 5s. plain; 21. 28. coloured. This work will be included in twelve fasciculi, each consisting of twenty plates, accompanied with as many leaves of description, to appear quarterly. The descriptions are written entirely in Latin, and a few remarks added in English; the plates are executed with the greatest attention to accuracy, and in the best style of the art, especially in the dissections of the fructification, from drawings made by the authors. A list of subscribers will be printed in the last number. |