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small testimony of gratitude for the happy hours spent, and the use- 
ful information collected, under the hospitable roof of the zoologist, 
tion of the specimens, for the quantity of skeletons, and above all for the never- 
sufficiently-praised series of individuals of the various species of both sexes, in dif- 
ferent ages, and from different localities and countries, which facilitate one’s 
judgement, and show at once in most cases, especially with Mammalia, what is or 
is not a good species. For this and many other reasons, a detailed Catalogue of 
this splendid collection is a necessity of our days. We can hardly conceive how 
the many treasures accumulated in that National establishment by the indefati- 
gable zeal of its so well-known director, Temminck, seconded by M. Schlegel and 
their subordinates (whose industry may be appreciated in England by those ac- 
quainted with M. Frank the Amsterdam merchant, so useful to science and 
naturalists of every country), are still allowed to remain unknown and undescribed ; 
the Museum itself, with its numerous new species, being left wncatalogued, and 
that in the year 1850! The discoveries made by Dutchmen in far-distant lands, 
to the peril of their lives, and with their own or their government’s capital, are 
thus daily exposed to be anticipated by other nations, and monopolized by the 
ever-increasing struggles of English industry; whilst a scientific Catalogue pub- 
lished on the plan long since advocated by Professor Is. Geoffroy St. Hilaire for the 
museum of the great French Nation, that is, with descriptions and figures of all 
new or not sufficiently-known species, would be an imperishable monument for 
science and for the Dutch Nation. And the greater benefit have we the right to 
expect for science from the execution of this noble enterprise, inasmuch as M. 
Schlegel, who would certainly be the head and arm of the publication, combines 
the knowledge for which he has long been celebrated all over the world, with the 
skill of a firstrate draftsman. His paper on Iconography applied to Natural 
History (Mem. Taylerian Soc. Haarlem), in which beautiful drawings of his own 
are produced as examples, after he has critically reviewed the standard works of 
every nation, and while giving sound precepts to artists devoted to our science, 
ought to be known everywhere, and at least translated into the English language. 
Under such circumstances, no book on Natural History, we shall never enough 
repeat it, would prove more effectual to the progress of science, more creditable 
to the nation, to the government, and to the able individuals willing to accom- 
plish the labour, than the Catalogue of the Leyden Museum on the enlightened 
plan above-mentioned, which such a naturalist as Schlegel certainly could not fail 
to improve in the course of elaboration. 
In order to prove our assertion, it is enough to remark, how much by the de- 
sired publication would be improved our knowledge of the Malasian fauna, since, 
of the productions of the island of Gilolo alone, all those collected at the mere 
landing of the Dutch naturalists, upon a surface of a square mile, proved to be new, 
and many of them very important additions to science; to indicate the number of 
undescribed objects received from Ashantee; and to point out the advantages 
arising from the facility of placing henceforth beyond the possibility of doubt the 
existence of remarkable species unaccountably rejected or misplaced, as Gavialis 
Schlegeli and Testudo emys. But to justify fully our insisting on these facts, I will 
select a few animals which I shall have perhaps the honour thus first to introduce 
to the English naturalist, and these examples I shall take out of each of the different 
classes, saying of the animals just as much as is necessary to excite, not to satisfy 
scientific curiosity. Among the new Mammalia, some of which will constitute 
new genera, I shall choose a third living species of Elephant. 
ELEPHAS SUMATRANUS, Temm., based upon four skeletons which I admired in 
company with my learned friend and colleague, Prof. Is. Geoffroy St. Hilaire of 
Paris. This species is perfectly intermediate between the Indian and African, 
especially in the shape of the skull, and will certainly put an end to the distinc- 
tion between Elephas and Loxodon with those who admit that anatomical genus; 
since although the crowns of the teeth of HZ. sumatranus are more like the Asiatic 
animal, still the less numerous undulated ribbons of enamel are nearly quite as 
wide as those forming the losanges of the African. The number of pairs of false 
ribs (which alone vary, the true ones being always 6) is 14, one less than in the 
africanus, one more than in the indicus; and so it is with the dorsal yertebre, 
