Royal Society, 141 



A Popular History of British Crustacea ; comprising a familiar 

 account of their classification and habits. By Adam White, 

 Assistant, Zoological Department, British Museum. Sq. 12mo. 

 London, Reeve, 1857. 



Mr. Reeve probably admires a good contrast ; at least this is the 

 only motive to which one can attribute his publishing consecutively 

 two such opposite books as this and the one to which we have just 

 called attention. In Mr. White's * Popular History of the Crustacea* 

 we have the carefully and conscientiously executed work of one who 

 is well acquainted with his subject ; and although we meet here and 

 there with tolerably lengthy quotations relating to the habits of the 

 animals described, it would be a hard-hearted critic indeed who 

 would object to this, when the portion of the work evidently due to 

 the author's own labour so greatly preponderates. 



By this, we do not mean to say that any great amount of originality 

 is displayed in its pages, and Mr. White himself is as ready as any 

 one to acknowledge that in treating popularly of a subject upon which 

 so much has been done, there is but little chance of striking into any 

 new path ; for he has evidently aimed solely at furnishing the young 

 naturalist with a sketch of the characters and habits of the numerous 

 Crustacea inhabiting the waters of our Islands, and it is not too 

 much to say that he has been eminently successful. His little book 

 is an extremely interesting and valuable addition to our popular litera- 

 ture of Natural History, especially as no work with the same scope 

 was previously in existence, and the plates with which it is illustrated 

 are, it seems to us, superior to most of those which have hitherto 

 appeared in Mr. Reeve's series. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL. SOCIETY. 



May 14, 1857.— General Sabine, R.A., Treas. and V.P., in the Chair. 



"On the Organization of the Brachiopoda." By Albany Han- 

 cock, Esq. 



In the present memoir the author states at length, and fully illus- 

 trates by figures, the conclusions to which he has been led by a long 

 series of researches into the anatomy of the Brachiopoda; investigations 

 which have been conducted with a special reference to the discrepant 

 opinions maintained by Prof. Owen and the older writers on the one 

 hand, and by Prof. Huxley and himself on the other. Some of the 

 points in dispute have already been discussed in a paper read before 

 the British Association at Cheltenham, and in the present memoir 

 the author not merely reiterates the statements which he then made, 

 but gives a detailed account of the whole organization of the Bra- 

 chiopoda based upon his dissections of the following species : — Wald- 



