GENERAL ZOOLOGY. 69 



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Zoonomische Briefe : Allgemeine Darstellung der thierischen Organi- 

 zation. Von Dr. Hermann Burmeister, Professor der Zoologie zu 

 Halle. Erster und Zweiter Theil. 8vo. Otto Wigand: Leipzig. 

 1856. 



Not addressed directly to the professed Zoologist, these outlines of the 

 chief types of animal structure, and of the relation that they bear to the 

 general system of nature, are intended for a class — even now increasing in 

 number — who, prepared already by a certain amount of education, have 

 come to regard the observation of nature as a part of the habitual exer- 

 cise which conduces to the full development of the faculties, and are 

 willing to include the study of the laws of Life and Organization among 

 the acknowledged instruments of intellectual training. As to the epistolary 

 form into which they have been thrown, this appears to have scarcely any 

 object but that of interrupting the long-drawn chain of systematic analysis 

 by convenient pauses, and, perhaps, of occasionally relieving the monotony 

 of comparative descriptions, by falling into a tone more colloquial than 

 might have appeared to suit a formal lecture or a scientific essay. But the 

 work does not assume, or affect, the anecdotical character of some books 

 that are termed popular, by courtesy, we suppose, on the strength of being 

 only superficial. The writer's thorough acquaintance with his subject, at 

 once minute and comprehensive, his genuine — even passionate love of 

 nature, and his eminently happy style of painting in words, have qualified 

 him, without renouncing a scientific treatment of his materials, to make out 

 of them two very pleasant volumes, for those, at least, in whom a taste for 

 the exact observation of nature has been in some degree awakened, and 

 who do not feel it a painful stretch when they are obliged to concen- 

 trate their attention, and to reflect and compare, as well as perceive and 

 remember. 



The author's design, not less than the compass of the work, has ex- 

 cluded, for the most part, those circumstantial examples among which 

 popular books of Natural History delight to revel ; but these have not 

 been superseded for the sake of introducing some questionable speculations, 

 or investigations of a difficult and slippery sort. If elsewhere Burmeister, 

 in the pursuit of a natural classification, may have appeared sometimes to 

 attach undue importance to the earlier stages of structural development, in 

 comparison with the finished type to which, in every instance, they may 

 be viewed as continually tending ; yet here, at least, his riper judgment 

 and experience has revolted against the fixed ideas of some extreme de- 

 votees of Embryological study ; and he appeals from their verdict, who 



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