Bibliographical Notices. 67 



or the pathless desert, stroll through the woods or the fields, or are 

 even confined to the limits of a garden, will be found to be endless 

 and inexhaustible. 



It is the conviction of this great defect in our system of educa- 

 tion which has led Mr. Patterson, Vice-President of the Natural 

 History Society of Belfast, and well-known as an excellent observer 

 of nature, to compose the work whose title stands at the head of 

 this notice, which from his intimate acquaintance with the subject, 

 the popular interest he has imparted to it, and the numerous excel- 

 lent wood-cuts (chiefly adapted from Milne Edwards's ' Cours Ele- 

 mentaire de Zoologie ') amply illustrating every part of it, combined 

 with its low price, may be regarded as one of the most valuable con- 

 tributions ever offered towards the more extended cultivation of 

 natural history in this country. 



As its high character as an elementary work has been recognised 

 by the Board of National Education in Ireland, by its adoption in all 

 the National Schools there (of which in December 1845 the num- 

 ber was 3426, attended by 452,844 scholars), it is superfluous to 

 speak further in its praise, and we shall merely state our full per- 

 suasion, that if adopted, as we trust it will be, in all our schools, 

 both for the upper and lower classes, the next generation will show 

 a hundred naturalists for one that we can now boast of, and that 

 results, the value and importance of which can scarcely be too highly 

 estimated, will attend a more extended cultivation of a science, 

 which, as Mr. Patterson truly observes in his preface, " exercises 

 both the observant and reflective powers, furnishes enjoyment pure 

 and exhaustless, and tends to make devotional feelings habitual." 



We conclude with the following anecdote from the Work, both as 

 a specimen of its popular manner, and as proving very strikingly how 

 important an acquaintance with the nature of the lower objects of 

 creation in quarters seemingly the most remote from being affected 

 by them, may often prove. '* With regard to the Medusa, we may 

 mention an anecdote which we learned from an eminent zoologist, 

 now a professor in one of the English Universities. He had a few 

 years ago been delivering some zoological lectures in a seaport town 

 in Scotland, in the course of which he had adverted to some of the 

 most remarkable points in the economy of the Acalephee. After the 

 lecture, a farmer who had been present came forward, and inquired 

 if he had understood him correctly, as having stated that the Medusa 

 contained so little of solid material, that they might be regarded as 

 little else than a mass of animated sea- water ? On being answered 

 in the affirmative, he remarked that it would have saved him many 

 a pound had he known that sooner, for he had been in the habit of 

 employing his men and horses in carting away large quantities of 

 jelly-fish from the shores and using them as manure on his farm, and 

 he now believed they could have been of little more real use than an 

 equal weight of sea- water. Assuming that as much as one ton 

 weight of Medusa recently thrown on the beach had been carted 

 away in one load, it will be found that, according to the experiments 

 of Prof. Owen already mentioned (p. 30), the entire quantity of solid 



