1866. | The Progress of Zoology. - 47 
to give an account to his brethren of the filthy customs of the 
degraded negroes of the kingdom of Dahome. Mr. W. T. Pritchard 
follows in the same track, with a description of some practices, 
equally foul, pursued by the Samoan islanders ; both these writers 
apparently having the idea that the leading function of this science 
of Anthropology, which they profess to promote, is to exhibit man 
in his most brutal and degraded aspects, and to avail themselves to 
the full of that “liberty” of speech which they believe to be the 
marked feature of the Society. And as an illustration of the 
reckless way in which another writer makes a statement, without 
advancing a shadow of proof in its support, we may refer to a 
paper “On the Phallic Worship of India,” by Mr. Edward Sellon, 
in which it is stated that “there would also now appear good 
ground for believing that the ark of the covenant, held so sacred by 
the Jews, contained nothing more nor less than a Phallus, the ark 
being the type of the Argha or Yoni.” 
Of the last volume we need say no more than that it is prin- 
cipally made up of a translation of the treatise of the distinguished 
anatomist and physiologist, Blumenbach, “On the Natural Variety 
of Mankind,” and of a translation of an maugural dissertation on 
‘the same subject, written in 1775, by a certain Dr. John Hunter, 
an Edinburgh graduate, who is not, our readers must bear in mind, 
the John Hunter, who founded the great museum in Lincoln’s Inn 
Fields. 
VI. THE PROGRESS OF ZOOLOGY. 
The Record of Zoological Literature, 1864, Vol. I. Tdited by 
Albert C. L. G. Giinther, M.A., M.D., F.Z.S., &c. London: 
Van Voorst, 1865. 
In the present age of thought and busy activity, when every 
department of science has so many diligent workers, the accumula- 
tion of facts is so vast and so rapid, that their arrangement into 
something like systematic order is a real boon to the scientific inves- 
tigator. The Year Book is now a recognized part of our literature, 
and the compilation of such laborious productions is of greater or 
lesser service according to the amount of intelligence and method 
brought to bear upon the collection and arrangement of the 
material. The greater the simplicity that can be introduced into 
such a digest the more valuable it becomes for reference, but it 
requires powers of mind of a superior order to condense and 
arrange upon a simple and intelligent plan a vast and heterogeneous 
mass of materials, such as a crowd of ardent workers have been 
busy upon during twelve months over the civilized world. Such a 
task has Dr. Gimther set to himself in the preparation of a volume 
