210 Bibliographical Notices. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China 

 Seas and Japan, performed in the years 1852, 1853 and 1854, 

 under the command of Commodore M. C. Perry, United States 

 Navy. By order of the Government of the United States. Vols. 

 I. and II., with Illustrations. Washington, 1856. London, 

 Triibner & Co. 



The second volume of Commodore Perry's Narrative of the cele- 

 brated " Japanese Expedition " contains, amongst a number of com- 

 munications in relation to other topics from different members of 

 the Expedition, several articles on natural history, which those who 

 are interested in the zoology, botany, or geology of the Western 

 Pacific should not neglect to consult. The smallest contributions 

 towards a knowledge of the natural productions of ground so seldom 

 trodden by Europeans as Japan, Formosa, or the Loo Choo Islands, 

 is acceptable. It would be well if our own Government would take 

 the hint, and insist upon the members of our numerous expeditions 

 making their discoveries immediately available to the student. 



The first part of the second volume of the present book is occupied 

 by several articles upon the botany, agriculture, and geology of the 

 Loo Choo archipelago. This is followed by Reports upon the agri- 

 culture of Japan and China and the coal-formation of Formosa, and 

 an interesting account of the small settlement upon Peel Island, one 

 of the Bonin group, with a copy of the short " Articles of Agree- 

 ment " which constitute the laws of this primitive republic. Next 

 come the papers on natural history, with which we are more imme- 

 diately concerned. Two articles by Mr. Cassin upon the birds col- 

 lected (principally by Mr. William Heine, the artist of the Expedi- 

 tion) are worthy of much attention, though they contain few novelties 

 in the way of undescribed species. The first of these relates to the 

 birds collected in Japan, most of which have been already noticed 

 in Temminck and Schlegel's volume of the magnificent ' Fauna 

 Japonica' devoted to the "Aves." But as Nangasaki in the southern 

 island of Kiusiu is the only place to which the Butch naturalists 

 have had access, and the present collections were formed in Niphon 

 and Jesso (the two northern and principal islands), the collection is 

 still one of high interest. We may call particular attention to the 

 details given of Mr. Heine's pheasant-shooting expeditions. He is 

 certainly the first "of any cultivated nation" who has had the good 

 fortune to beat up the native haunts of Phasianus versicolor and 

 Phasianus Soemmeringii. We are not at all surprised at his missing 

 the latter bird, or "at least only shooting off his two long tail- 

 feathers ;" for even an ordinary cock pheasant {Phasianus colchi- 

 cus <5 ) rising near (with a tail only one-third as long) is sufficient 

 to agitate one not a little. But let us give Mr. Heine due credit for 

 having preserved examples of these fine birds, and thus fixed their 

 real locality. Our countryman Mr. Atkinson, in the steppes of Tartary 

 — a region still more inaccessible — seems to have shot and eaten 



