Bibliographical Notices* 133 



sociationfor exploring Central Africa.'" By Andrew Smith, M.D., 

 Surgeon to the Forces and Director of the Expedition. 4to. Nos. I. 

 II. Smith, Elder, and Co., London, 1838. 



This is the work devoted to natural history alluded to in our no- 

 tice of the ' Zoology of the Beagle' which has received the support of 

 Government by a grant of money to defray the expenses of engraving 

 the plates, &c, and being thus in a manner public property, we shall 

 have little hesitation in expressing our opinion regarding it. It is 

 a selection from the zoological collections brought home by the ex- 

 pedition which some years since penetrated into Central Africa under 

 the care and superintendence of Dr. Smith, to whose persevering 

 zeal in the pursuit of natural history we are mainly indebted for the 

 whole plan and execution of the journey. That gentleman we be- 

 lieve spent some part of his early career as a student in the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh at the period when Dr. Barclay as a private lec- 

 turer gave a new impulse to natural science by undertaking a series 

 of lectures on comparative anatomy. These lectures, novel at the 

 time, and attended at first by many as being so, gave a different turn 

 to the minds of young men entering the medical profession, and 

 called on at an early period to go abroad. Many began to trace the 

 beautiful gradations and analogies of structure in the frames of the 

 singular animals inhabiting the different countries they visited. We 

 can with confidence affirm that many an hour was thus spent which 

 might otherwise have been thrown away ; and the Barclayan Museum 

 in the Hall of the College of Surgeons in Edinburgh will bear testi- 

 mony of the assiduity with which many a pupil wrought to add 

 something to the collection of his admired and respected teacher. 

 Dr. Smith appears to have imbibed much of this zeal, and when en- 

 tering on the duties of his profession in a foreign station soon gave 

 evidence that he had not attended these lectures in vain — for not only 

 was the direction of the Museum at Cape Town much improved, but 

 several valuable and novel additions were made to it by his exertions ; 

 and the country, which had been explored by Sparrman and Barrow, 

 and Le Vaillant, was still found to contain materials unknown and of 

 vast interest to the zoologist. An active mind could not however 

 rest within the boundaries of the colony, or even within the range 

 of some of our enterprising modern travellers ; and after several ex- 

 cursions of considerable extent, the journey we have alluded to was 

 planned and executed, and the first portion of the result is now be- 

 fore us. 



Had this work appeared ten or twelve years since, we and others 

 would have held it as a beautiful production and scarcely to be ri- 



