Risso, Histoire Nalurelle de V Europe Meridionale, 5i^3 



variegate its under surface. Figures of this species, of the D. glo- 

 bicepsy and of the D. Risso^ accompany the descriptions 



Of Birds, the number is considerable, amounting to three 

 hundred and five species. Many of them are however birds of 

 passage, which merely cross the district of Nice during their peri- 

 odical migrations. This department of the work exhibits little 

 more than a list with references to the principal authours by 

 whom each species has been described and figured. In some in- 

 stances, when a bird is doubtingly referred to a named species, 

 its description is given in detail ; and the same plan is followed in 

 a few others, where M. Risso, although he has given a name, still 

 hesitates whether to consider the birds as any thing more than 

 varieties. Three only are noticed as altogether new, the CurrU' 

 cce torquata and rubricilla, and the Fringilla incerta. 



Of Reptilia thirty-eight are enumerated, including a very large 

 proportion of new ones. These are the Lacerta Merremia and 

 L.fasciata; Gecko meridionalis ; S eps chalddica ; Anguis cine-' 

 reus and A. bicolor ; Coluber stfigatus, C, rupestris^ G» guttatus^ 

 and C. palustris ; liana maritima and R, alpina : and Bufo 

 ferruginosus and B, tuberculosus* 



In the ichthyological department of his work, M. Risso assumes 

 a yet higher ground. His intimate acquaintance with the Fishes 

 which inhabit the Mediterranean Sea had already been suffici- 

 ently proved by his former production on the Ichthyology of 

 Nice, a work which established his fame as one of the first prac- 

 tical observers in this neglected though interesting branch of 

 Zoological knowledge. In his present work he advances still 

 further, in the description of additional species, which have since 

 been presented to his notice, and in giving characters to several 

 new genera, which it has appeared to him necessary to propose for 

 general adoption. His list now extends to three hundred and 

 eighty-two species, and might probably have been still increased 

 by the addition of fresh-water fishes, for it is difficult to conceive 

 that the number of these can be so limited as it appears to be 

 from his enumeration. Of the Linnean genus Cyprinus^ for in- 

 stance, only four are mentioned, one of these being the univer- 

 sally domesticated C. auratusy while our "own rivers present us 



Vol. III. 2 p 



