IXX PROCEEDINGS OK XHE 



to acquire a name in the pursuit of natural science after emerging 

 from the barbarism of the middle ages ; and although she has since 

 been more devoted to art, and has allowed several of the more 

 northern states far to outstrip her in science, she has still, amidst 

 all her vicissitudes, produced a fair share of eminent physiologists 

 as well as systematic zoologists and botanists ; and within the last 

 few years the cultivation of biology appears to have received a fresh 

 impulse. It is only to be hoped that it may not be seriously checked 

 by local and political intrigues, which appear to have succeeded, in 

 one instance at least, in conferring an important botanical post on 

 the least competent of the several candidates. Amongst the various 

 publishing academies and associations mentioned in my Address of 

 1865, the Italian Society of Natural Sciences at Milan contains a 

 considerable number of papers on Italian zoology ; and a few others 

 in zoology and palaeontology are scattered over the publications of 

 the Academies of Turin and Venice and of the Technical Institute 

 of Palermo. From the lists I have received, there appear to have 

 been recent catalogues of Sicilian and Modenese Birds by Doderlein 

 in the Palermo Journal, of Italian Araneida and Modenese Fishes by 

 Canestrini in the Milanese Transactions, and of Italian Diptera, 

 commenced by Rondani in the Bulletin of the Italian Entomological 

 Society. Malacology, so peculiarly important in the study of the 

 physical history of the Mediterranean region, has produced numerous 

 papers, chiefly in the Milanese Transactions, and in Gentiluomo's 

 ' BuUettino Malacologico ' and ' Biblioteca Malacologica,' published 

 at Pisa. I also learn that at the time of the decease of the late 

 Prof. Paolo Savi, in the beginning of April, the manuscript of his 

 * Ornitologia ItaKana' was complete, and had just been placed in the 

 printer's hands. 



In Botany, Parlatore's elaborate ' Flora Italiana ' has continued to 

 make slow progress. We have received up to the 2nd part of the 

 4th volume, reaching as far upward as Euphorbiacese, having com- 

 menced with the lower orders. The old Journal of Botany ceased 

 with the year 1847, as I presumed to have been the case when I 

 mentioned it in 1865, and has since been replaced by a 'Nuovo 

 GiornaleBotanicoItaliano,' which continues, with tolerable regularity, 

 issuing four parts in the year, the last received being the 2nd of the 

 third volume. The most valuable of the systematic papers it con- 

 tains are Beccari's descriptions of some of his Bornean collections. 

 Delpino, well known for his interesting dichogamic observations, as 

 well as for some rather imaginative speculations, has also contri- 

 buted to systematic botany a monograph of Marcgraaviaceae, but. 



