226 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



he describes a new species (of Poeocephalus), under the name 

 Psittacus versteri, from Guinea^ allied to P. senegalus. The plate 

 of the new Pigeons of the genus Ptilopus referred to by Prof. 

 Schlegel in his letter to us {antea, p. 120), is given in the first 

 Number of this work, but not the descriptions. 



3. Scandinavian Publication. 



Professor Sundevall has again contributed a valuable work to 

 the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Science at Stockholm*, 

 entitled " Ett forsok att bestamma de af Aristoteles omtalade 

 Djurarterna," Stockholm, 18G2. The volume is a careful com- 

 pendium of the Aristotelian natural history, compiled on a 

 system which has not hitherto, so far as we are aware, been 

 attempted in any language, and which enables the student at 

 once to ascertain and gauge the amount of knowledge attained 

 by the great master, on each species which came under his ob- 

 servation. The first portion of the work consists of a life of 

 Aristotle, with especial reference to his opportunities for obtain- 

 ing natural information, and a careful and lucid summary of his 

 system, compared, step by step, with the conclusions of modern 

 science, and shows how the grand outline of the map of nature, 

 which it needed Linnseus and Cuvier to fill up, was traced with 

 tolerable exactness by the mighty Greek. His divisions evaifjua 

 and dvatfia correspond with those of Vertebrata and Inverte- 

 brata, and although the subdivision of the former into ^(ooroKa 

 and cdOTOKa is somewhat confused with the parallel separation 

 into airrepa and TTTepcora, it yet is marvellous how, in the far 

 more recondite Invertebrate kingdom, Aristotle had a glimpse 

 of the grand distinctions between Crustaceans [jxaXaKoarpaKa) , 

 Cephalopods [fxaXaKia], Molluscs {oarpaKoSep/jba) , and Insects 

 (eVxo/ia). 



Prof. Sundevall has certainly elucidated the systematic con- 

 ceptions of Aristotle with greater clearness than his German pre- 

 decessors in the same field, J. B, Meyer (^Aristoteles Thierkunde^), 

 and Lenz {' Zoologie der alten Griechen und Romer'). The sub- 

 sequent chapters are devoted to a summary of the account given 

 by Aristotle of each species, arranged in accordance with the 

 * K, Svensk, Vet. Akad. Handl. Band. iv. No. 2, 1862. 



