Discovery of the Allan tois in the Kangaroo. 157 



fited ; but if, in spite of all these advantages, our rage for 

 French fashions makes us doggedly persist in following this 

 revolutionary ignis fatuus, as if it were the lamp of truth, we 

 shall only be led into confusion and inconsistency. In fact, 

 the French themselves are, of all the civilized nations of Eu- 

 rope, the very worst linguists, and the most careless in mat- 

 ters of nomenclature ; in the present instance, moreover, they 

 are grossly inconsistent, for they adopt marsupial, marsupi- 

 aux, and reject mammal, mammaux, for no other assignable 

 reason than because the former were invented by a Frenchman 

 and the latter by a foreigner. 



The word mammiferous may, perhaps, be tolerated even in 

 our own language, as a qualifying adjective ; as for instance, 

 mammiferous animals, mammiferous creatures, &c. though 

 even here mammated is preferable, as being more agreeable 

 to English analogies ; but the noun - substantive mammifere, 

 mammiferes, is a downright barbarism, and ought to be scout- 

 ed out of all civilized society. There is, however, one sense 

 in which the word mammiferous has been occasionally em- 

 ployed of late, and in which it is altogether inadmissible, viz. 

 as a geological term, to designate such deposits as contain the 

 bones of mammals. A very slight alteration, however, will 

 obviate this error : if, instead of mammiferous, we say mam- 

 maliferous deposits, mammaliferous strata, &c. our phjjaseo- 

 logy will be both correct and appropriate ; and this facility of 

 composition is a powerful argument, in addition to those al- 

 ready enumerated, in favour of the simple and expressive term 

 mammal, rather than the harsh compound mammifere. 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE, NOTICES, &c. 



Discovery of the Allantois in the fcetal Kangaroo. — 

 Having just received the last number of the Comptes Ren- 

 dus, we observe that M. Coste has written to the French 

 Academy, requesting permission to lay before it a memoir, 

 in reply to the statements contained in Professor Owen's 

 letter, addressed to M. Arago ; (Comptes Rendus, 1838, p. 

 147, and Mag. Nat. Hist. 1838, p. 94) ; and which memoir, 

 he intimates, will enable the Academy to decide upon the 

 merits of the question, as regards the discovery of the al- 

 lantois '. 



We cannot sufficiently admire the boldness displayed by 

 M. Coste, in a remark accompanying this request, in which 

 he speaks of the point at issue between himself and Pro- 



