202 Analyses of Books. [March, 



Article XI. 



Analyses of Books. 



Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, for 



1825. Part 11. 



This part of the Royal Society's Transactions contains a 

 somewhat unusual number of important as well as extended 

 papers, in many distinct branches of philosophical inquiry. To 

 give a satisfactory account of every paper would be impractica- 

 ble : we must, therefore, confine our notice of some to a state- 

 ment of their general object, in order to allow room for a more 

 complete analysis of others. 



X. On the Anatomy of the Mole Cricket. By J. Kidd, MD. 

 FRS. Reg. Prof, of Medicine in the University of Oxford. 



The venerable entomologist who has just brought to a con- 

 clusion the " Introduction " to his favourite science, in which, 

 with his friend Mr. Spence, he was so long and so meritoriously 

 engaged, in his Introductory Address, explanatory of the views 

 of the Zoological Club, delivered at the foundation of that Society 

 on Nov. 29, 1823, as already recorded in the Annals, expressed 

 himself in terms of some regret with regard to the state of the 

 Comparative Anatomy of the Invertebrate Animals amongst our 

 naturalists. " France," he observed, " in which this science 

 has attained to its acme, can boast of her Cuvier, Savigny, 

 Marcel de Serres, De Blainville, Chabrier, and others ; Germany 

 of her Blumenbach, Ramdohr, Treviranus, Herold, and a host 

 besides ; Italy of her Malpighi, Spallanzani, Scarpa, and PoH ; 

 Holland of her Swammerdam and Lyonnet ; but the only boast 

 of Britain, an illustrious one indeed, nee plnribus impar, is her 

 Hunter ; and even he, if my recollection does not fail me, 

 employed his scalpel chiefly on the higher orders of animals." 

 Whether this reproach, from authority so high, has roused the 

 attention to the subject of those who study the second grand 

 division of animated nature, or whether we are to ascribe the 

 results we are about to mention to the general stimulus which 

 has of late been given to zoological science in general, in this 

 country, we know not ; but certain it is, that our anatomy and 

 physiology of the Invertehrata have received some very import- 

 ant contributions since Mr. Kirby's address was pronounced. 

 Among the foremost of these is Mr. W. S. Macleay's Anatomi- 

 cal Observations on the Tunicata, a natural group represented 

 by the Linnaean Ascidia; and which completes the circle of 

 aiffinity between the lowest subregnum of the animal kingdom, 

 the polype Acrita, and the acephalous or bivalve Mollusca. This 

 was published in the last part of the Linnean Transactions ; and 

 in the same rank, though perhaps less rigorously scientific in its 



