190 Scientific Intelligence. — Zoology. 



As specimens of the interesting matter treated of in the wo^k, 

 Dr Osborne selected the animal nature of sponges ; the ages of va- 

 rious animals; the movements of the nautilus (the same doubt ex- 

 isting in the author's mind as to the origin of the shell, which has 

 divided the opinions of Messrs Blainville, Owen, Gray, and Mad. 

 Power, within the last year) ; the localities of animals, as affording 

 data for ascertaining the rate at which they have extended them- 

 selves over the globe ; particulars relating to artificial incubation as 

 practised in Egypt ; the management of cattle ; a mode of fattening 

 hogs with rapidity, by commencing with a fast of three days; the 

 mohair goat located in Cilicia, as at present; hybernation and mi- 

 grations of various animals and fish ; description of the fisher-fish 

 (^Lopliius piscatoiius), and of the torpedo, with the proof that they 

 catch their prey in the extraordinary manner described; many in- 

 genious modes of taking partridge, and of fishing, detailed ; the 

 friendships which have been perpetuated between different classes 

 of animals — as the trochilus and the crocodile, the Pinna muricata 

 and the Cancer pinnotheres, the crow and the heron; their ani- 

 mosities, as between the crow and owl ; the diseases of animals 

 traced throughout the series, extending even to fish ; hydrophobia 

 described, as being communicated by the bite of a rabid dog to all 

 animals except man, which appears to be the correct statement with 

 respect to hot climates, and not (as has been represented by some 

 modern travellers) an entire absence of the disease. 



These detached specimens of the contents of this work, furnish, 

 however, a very inadequate idea of its real value. There are in it 

 whole sections, the separate sentences of which would furnish texts 

 for as many Bridgewater Treatises. The freshness and originality 

 of the observations taken from Nature herself, and not made up 

 from quotations of preceding writers ; the extent of the views, not 

 bounded by any necessity for complying with preconceived or pre- 

 valent notions, but capacious as the author's mind itself, and fre- 

 quently leading the reader into the most interesting under-currents 

 of thought branching off from the great fountain ; these are all 

 merits belonging to the work, but not constituting its chief value, 

 — which is, that it is a collection of fapts, observed under peculiar 

 advantages, such as have never since occurred, and that it is at the 

 present day to be consulted for new discoveries. 



Now that Greece is, for the first time since the revival of letters, 

 in possession of a government capable of appreciating scientific in- 

 vestigations, a favourable opportunity offers for preparing an edi- 

 tion of the work, at once worthy of the age in which it was com- 

 posedj and of that in which we live ; and perhaps some individual 



