70 Dr Fleming on the Climate of the Arctic Regium. 



Mr Conybeare should have compared the feet of the two spe- 

 cies before he ventured to write on the subject. I might have 

 quoted several other examples, from the same source, but I 

 shall at present only supply one other. Cuvier has declared 

 that " the smallest articulating surface of bone, or the smallest 

 apophysis, has a determinate character, relative to the class, the 

 order, the genus, and the species to which it belonged ; inso- 

 much, that when one possesses merely a well preserved extre- 

 mity of a bone, he can, by careful examination, and the aid of 

 a tolerable analogical knowledge, and of accurate compai'ison, 

 determine all these things with as much certainty as if he had 

 the entire animal before him/'' Yet in spite of this piece of 

 silly gasconading, the learned anatomist is forced to admit, in 

 reference to the fossil bones of the gpnus Horse, " It is not pos- 

 sible to say whether it was one of the species now existing or 

 not, because the skeletons of these species are so like each other, 

 that they cannot be distinguished by the mere comparison of 

 isolated fragments." Analogy is thus at fault ; for surely re- 

 markable differences prevail in the external appearance, habits, 

 and distribution of the Zebra, the Ass, and the Horse. 



We admire the boldness with which Mr Conybeare ventures 

 to proceed from generals to particulars ; and he commences by 

 displaying the extent of his knowledge regarding the distribu- 

 tion of the Lamelliferous Polyparia, constituting the genus Ma- 

 drepora of Linnaeus. After all his researches, he has discover- 

 ed that a single species lives in the seas of Norway, and he tri- 

 umphandy exhibits this " solitary tenant of colder seas," in 

 contrast with the " hundreds of species inhabiting warm la- 

 titudes." (There is a considerable numerical exaggeration here, 

 which I leave to its author to correct.) In a note to this 

 paragraph, he adds, that an English Caryophyllea had been 

 described by Mr Broderip, in the Zoological Journal for April 

 1828. Mr Broderip, it is true, imagined that " the hard 

 parts of this indigenous species do not appear to have been 

 any where described ;"" but had Mr Conybeare been acquaint- 

 ed with the history of British zoophytes, he might have 

 corrected this mistake, by pointing out that I myself had pub- 

 lished (in the 2d volume of the Wernerian Society's Memoirs) 

 a description of the same species, fourteen years previous to 

 April 1828 ; and I may add, that Dr Leach saw my specimens 



