194 7 Miscellanies. 
tions of minerals, having undergone a complete repair, has been lately re- 
opened to the public, with the collection of birds and shells. Only the 
passerines, gallinaceous, and wading birds are as yet arranged ; but the 
remainder will be exhibited in the course of the spring, when this room, 
which is three hundred feet long and fifty wide, will contain one of the 
richest ornithological collections in Europe. e cases are all glazed 
with large panes of plate-glass, with very narrow brass bars; and the 
smaller birds are arranged on a new plan, on box shelves, each bird hav- 
ing a background close behind it, so as to show its outline distinctly and 
relieve its colors; and the shells, which will occupy forty table cases, are 
exhibited on black velvet, which gives them admirable relief—Ann. and 
Mag. of Nat. Hist. for Dec. 1840. 
6. Prof. Agassiz and his Works.—In former volumes of this Journal, 
we have mentioned the labors of Prof. Agassiz on the fossil fishes, the 
echinodermata, and the living fresh-water fishes of Central Europe. 
1. His great work on Fossil Fishes. 2. Monograph on the Echinodermata, liv- 
ing and fossil. 3. On the fresh-water Fishes of Central Europe, Part I. And we 
both living and fossil, Part I on the moulds of the living Molluscs. 6. Critical 
Study of Fossil Molluses, Part I, containing the Tri 
of the Glaciers, 1 vol. 8vo. with a folio Atlas containing thirty two plates. 
_ The Swiss formations prove to be unexpectedly rich in fossil echino- 
_ dermata, hitherto undescribed, as appears from the extensive catalogue 
of those which M. Agassiz has collected. It is his intention (as announ- 
ced to us in a letter dated Jan. 8, 1841) speedily to publish monographs 
of all these species as well as of those that are living. ‘Two of these 
parts have already appeared, and a third part is ready prepared. In his 
critical study of the Molluscs, the author intends, in like manner, t0 de- 
scribe the species of these genera that have hitherto been the most neg 
ected. 
The first monograph of the Trigonias, now before us, affords a striking 
example of the great amount of materials which the author has collected. 
__ Inthe memoirs upon the moulds of Molluscs, we may confidently expect 
that a new era will open upon conchology, by proving the possibility of 
‘The study of the glaciers will probably excite a more vivid interest tha? 
any of the works of Agassiz, especially since the discovery made by hi™, 
during a residence of some months in the British Islands, of marks ind 
eating, that in former ages a very extensive shell or crust of ice eX 
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