IV PKOCEEDINGS OF THE 



and the ' Journal de Conchyliologie.' Dr. Baillon has resumed his 

 ' Histoire des Plantes,' and published the Papaveraceaj, Caj)paride3e, 

 and Cruciferae ; and M. Westphal-Castelnau, of Montpellier, has sent 

 us his catalogue of his late father's rich erpetological museum. 



Of the Memoirs and Bulletin of the Brussels Academy several 

 volumes are on the table, containing, besides various anatomico- 

 physiological and a few systematic zoological papers, P. J. van Be- 

 neden's detailed memoirs on the parasites and commensals of the 

 larger fishes and Cetacea. From HoUand we have five parts of the 

 * Archives Neerlandaises,' including a considerable number of papers 

 of varied interest. 



Prom Switzerland, to the Transactions received before the recess 

 we have now to add those of the Societe Yaudoise of Lausanne and 

 of the Natural-History Society of Zurich. Prom Italy there are 

 bulky volumes from the Istituto Yeneto, with but very little con- 

 cerning our branches of knowledge. We have a new number of the 

 ' Giornale Botanico Italiano,' hitherto edited by Beccari ; but as he 

 is about to undertake another distant expedition, the journal has 

 passed into the hands of Caruel, who has at length obtained a pro- 

 fessorship worthy of his acceptance, having been appointed to suc- 

 ceed the late Paolo Savi at Plorence. 



The annual North-American package, transmitted through the 

 Smithsonian Institution, is as usual very valuable. Their own 

 volume of Contributions to Knowledge is occupied by an elaborate 

 memoir of L. H. Morgan, on the systems of consanguinity and 

 affinity of the human family ; whilst the publications of the Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Society, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of Boston, 

 the Boston Society of Natural History, the Harvard Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology, the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, 

 the Portland Society of Natural History, the Peabody Academy of 

 Science, the Essex Institute of Salem, and the Connecticut Aca- 

 demy of Arts and Sciences, as well as the ' American Journal of 

 Conchology,' show how actively the American zoologists and palae- 

 ontologists are pursuing the investigation of the numerous forms of 

 animal life now in existence, or whose remains have been preserved, 

 not only in their own vast territory, but also in the neighbouring 

 Central- American States, with some attention also to the South- 

 American fauna. The active continuation of the more popular 

 biological periodicals, both in the United States and in Canada, affords 

 evidence, moreover, of the general spread of the study of natural 



