252 Bulletin de la Societe Imperiale 



he is guilty of some degree of injustice to our distinguished 

 countryman Mac Leay. The latter, in 1819, had described 

 a new coleopterous insect, and named the genus Leucothyreus ; 

 but Professor Fischer, in giving some additional account of 

 the beetle, prefers to call it Aulacodus, a name conferred by 

 Eschscholtz two years subsequently to the publication of the 

 English naturaHst. The only reason given for this preference 

 is, that the latter appellation appears more characteristic than 

 the former ; a reason utterly insufficient to set aside the para- 

 amount claim of priority. 



In the same number there is a notice of the museum of 

 Barnaoul, in Siberia!, founded in 1823, by the care of the 

 superintendent of the mines of Kolywano, Woskresensk, and 

 of the civil government of Tomsk. This museum is intended 

 for the use of the school attached to these mines, and of all 

 native lovers of natural science ; and, notwithstanding many 

 circumstances unfavourable to its increase, it contains 49 spe- 

 cies of quadrupeds, of which 43 are Siberian and 6 exotic ; 

 223 species of birds, of which 166 are native and 57 exotic; 

 four tables covered with beautiful marine shells, some of which 

 are rare; 1403 species of insects; and a table covered with 

 corals and other marine zoophytes. The botanical depart- 

 ment appears to be poor, but it possesses specimens of almost 

 all the plants collected by Professor Ledebour and his com- 

 panions, in their journey in the Altai' in 1826, a great number 

 of which are new species, described for the first time in the 

 Flora Altdica, The museum, from the late period of its in- 

 stitution, does not possess any of the rich pieces of minerals 

 which were formerly found in the beautiful mine of Zmeino- 

 gorsk, but several chambers contain a considerable number 

 of the minerals of Europe, and of the Oural Mountains. In 

 another department are deposited the clothes, ornaments, 

 arms, instruments, utensils, and idols of the different races of 

 Siberia and of Northern America ; while a third contains, in 

 three large saloons, a rich collection of models illustrative of 

 the explorations of the mines of Zmeinogorsk and of Talair, 

 and of the methods necessary to reduce the minerals. We have 

 read the notice, of which the above is a brief outline, with 

 great interest, for it is pleasing to follow the march of science 

 into remote regions, and to reflect on what incalculable ad- 

 vantages, even in a moral view, such an institution may be of, 

 in a country with which we have been wont to associate some- 

 thing melancholy and disagreeable. 



No. V. contains a description of a phosphorescent larva; 

 and we shall give a condensed translation of the paper, since 

 no similar fact is noticed in Kirby and Spence's Introduction 



