SS EE 
SPALLANZANI’S TRACTS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ANIMALS, &c, 
Stage of their education, Mrs. Mary 
Trimmer’s compilation will have no just 
cause of complaint if it be consigned to 
the very lowest form. In'some respects, it 
may be advantageously put into the hands 
of such as have just advanced beyond 
their hornbook, and have learnt to put 
syllables together. The figures will ex- 
cite the curiosity, and some of the de- 
tails will fix the attention of the little 
urchins, much better than a book of 
moral sentences; the subject itself will 
more usefully enlarge their ideas than is 
done by most of the fictitious tales which 
at present form the principal rudiments 
of their learning. But before it can be- 
come fit for this humble office, it must 
receive some material defalcations and 
corrections: nothing must be said in it 
about procreation, rutting seasons, and 
organs of generation; nor should a 
child be told,* what every one but a 
child in natural history knows to be 
false, that the argali and the musmon 
863 
are different animals; and that ‘ there 
are seven species of camel which live in 
a wild state in the desarts of Arabia and 
Africa, and in the temperate parts of 
Asia.” 
We have too lively a recollection of 
our youthful feelings to take pleasure in 
speaking unfavourably of a professed 
female production: some feeble remains 
of gallantry incline us to indulge the 
persuasion that something of a ruse de 
guerre has been employed on this occas 
sion, and that, like poor Slender in the 
play, instead of sweet Ann Page, we 
have got hold of a great lubberly boy : 
but if there be really a Mrs. Mary Trim- 
mer, of Kentish Town, in existence, we . 
must honestly advise her to betake herself 
to some other calling, and to employ 
her time in making caps, or puddings 
and pies, orin short any thing within 
the limits of innocence, rather than a 
book on natural history. 
Art. VI. Tracts on the Natural History of Animals and Vegetables. Translated from the 
original Italian of the Able Spatuanzani, by Fohn Graham Dalzell, Esq. Advocate. 
Second Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. 
THE curious experimentsof thelate in- 
defatigable Abbe Spallanzani, on seyeral 
subjects of natural history, and particu- 
Jarly on animal physiology, are well 
known in every part of Europe. Solong 
ago as 1765, appeared his dissertation on 
microscopic animalcula, in which he 
established their animality in opposition 
to Needham’s theory of a vegetative 
power, and Buffon’s of organic mole- 
cules. It was followed 1768, by his 
celebrated prodromus on animal repro- 
duction, particularly of the heads of 
snails, the feet and tails of water newts, 
&c. after amputatitn. In 1776, the prin- 
ciples of his first dissertation were farther 
developed and supported, in his tracts 
on the natural history of animals and 
vegetables, the translation of which is 
now before us. And finally, in 1778, 
were published his dissertations on ani- 
mal digestion, and the generation of ani- 
‘mals and vegetables. ‘The latter disser- 
tations were translated into English in 
1784, with an introductory analysis of 
the tracts on the natural history of ani- 
mals and vegetables; but the tracts 
themselves did not appear in our lan- 
guage till the year 1'799, when they were 
printed at Edinburgh without the name 
of the translator. In the first edition, 
the tract on the animalcula of igfusions 
Ann. Rev. Vor. II. ‘ 
q 
was considerably abbreviated: those on 
seminal vermiculi, on animals and vege- 
tables confined in stagnant air, on ani- 
mals killed and revived, and on the ori- 
gin of the plantule of mould, were given 
entire; with the addition of two me- 
moirs on the reproduction of the head of 
the terrestrial snail, by Mr. Bonnet, of 
Geneva. With respect to the latter, the. 
translator observed in his preface, that 
Signor Spallanzani (besides his prodro- 
mo) published two memoirs sopra la ri- 
produzione della testa nella lumache terestri, 
which would with more propriety have 
formed part of thé volume ; but that he 
was not so entirely master of his own 
time, as the superintendance of publish- 
ing two or three hundred pages would 
require. He alsoconiessed, that in some 
passages he had not been able to ascer- 
tain the author’s meaning with precision ; 
a confession which was fully verified by 
the frequent obscurity of the translation. 
In the second edition, with which we 
are more immediately concerned, the 
name of the translator appears, and 
many improvements have been made. 
The dissertation on the animaleula of 
infusions is given nearly entire ; nothing 
being now omitted but a part of the con- 
troversy with Mr. Needham, which, in 
the present day, would be uninteresting 
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