47 



Far otherwise with the History of British Animals, of Dr. Fleming ; which, 

 with all its errors and deficiencies, and after all the unmerited obloquies cast upon 

 it, we are bold and stubborn enough to regard,* — yes, and publicly eulogize, — as 

 a very meritorious and creditable production. The arrangement is, we are aware, 

 confused and highly objectionable, and the characters of many of the genera will 

 not stand scrutiny. Still, the specific characters are traced with a clear and mas- 

 terly hand : and the History of British Animals has, we are confident, done 

 much to facilitate and promote the study of zoological science in this country. 

 The total number of British Vertebrata, we may add, enumerated or described 

 by Dr. Fleming, amounts to only four hundred and eighty-seven ; leaving a ma- 

 jority of ninety-four species for the Catalogue of Mr. Jenyns. (See note, p. 46). 



Lectures on the Vertebrated Animals of the British Islands, published in 

 1831, by Dr. Shirley Palmer, next claim our attention. The very easy, popular, 

 and even playful style in which this little work is written, would preclude its in- 

 troduction into a strictly scientific retrospect ; were it not for the Table of British 

 Mammifera by which it is preceded, and the generally accurate and useful 

 Synopsis of the various genera and species appended to it in the form of notes. 

 In this table, and these notes, Dr. Palmer has enumerated and characterized sixty- 

 five species of Mammifera belonging to the British islands. If to these are added 

 the ten new species of the Bat-family described by Mr. Jenyns, the Oared Shrew, 

 Sorex remifer, and the Bank-Campagnol, Arvicola riparia, first noticed by 

 Sowerby and Yarrell, the catalogue of British Mammalia would be swelled to 

 seventy-seven, — a number which exceeds, by sixteen, the whole of the vertebrat- 

 ed animals specified, by Jenyns, as inhabiting Britain, or frequenting its shores. 

 From the period which has elapsed since the appearance of the first Part of Dr. 

 Palmer's Lectures, there is little probability that he will now complete them. 



The Manual of Mr. Jenyns, to which we finally and gladly revert, is, with a 

 a few trivial exceptions, all that the student of British zoology can wish for, or 

 require, in an elementary and synoptical work, — clear, luminous, minute, and, in 

 general, extraordinarily accurate. We congratulate the reverend gentleman on the 

 ability which he has so conspicuously exhibited in the execution of his arduous 

 undertaking. We congratulate the younger naturalists of our country, on the 

 acquisition of such a guide in their zoological studies and researches. Greatly 

 should we rejoice to see the remaining Classes of animals, — the Invertebrata, — 

 of the British Islands, synoptically illustrated by a hand as masterly, and in a 

 style as clear, unostentatious and unexpensive, as that of the Rev. Leonard Jenyns. 



* We have, of late, been mightily amused by the freaks of a modern writer on "Mam- 

 malogy ;" who, while arranging the Bats under the Order Quadrumana, has the modesty 

 to stigmatize the History of British Animals, as a " wretched" production. Does he know 

 how his favourite term Mammalogy is constructed ; or what Quadrumana actually means ? 

 Has he deigned to peruse the really valuable work which he so unjustly decries ? 



