Bibliographical Notices. 75 
«6, Lastly, it is inferior in the quality of its timber to the last- 
named species. 
‘Now of the Pinuses above enumerated as existing in southern 
Europe, the Abies pectinata is the one which seems best to accord 
with the above description, especially when we add that Pliny (lib. xvi. 
c. 38) describes it as having its leaves indented like the teeth of a 
comb, which may be regarded as expressive of one of the generic 
distinctions between the Adies and Pinus of modern botanists. 
‘But we must not expect from this author, or indeed from any 
of those of antiquity, the same precision as is demanded from modern 
botanists in such matters. Probably the two lines in Virgil’s 7th 
Eclogue, v. 65— 
‘ Fraxinus in silvis pulcherrima, Pinus in hortis, 
Populus in fluviis, Abies in montibus altis,’— 
expressed the amount of discrimination which the Romans exercised 
in such matters ; so that not only the ddies pectinata, but any other 
resinous tree, with narrow pointed leaves, growing in mountainous 
places, attaining to a great height, and serviceable for timber, would 
have been included by them under the name of Adies.” 
The whole volume consists of similar discussions, and therefore 
does not admit of extract. It is sure to attract the attention of all 
who take any interest in the identification of ancient trees with those 
at present known, and must tend to correct many of the mistaken 
views now held by scholars concerning them. 
The Record of Zoological Literature. 1864. Vol. 1. Edited by 
Ausert C. L. G. Gtwrner, M.A., M.D., Ph.D., F.Z.8., &c. 
Van Voorst, 1865. 
The difficulties which the naturalist has to encounter who is 
anxious to ascertain what has already been written on any special 
subject are continually becoming greater. Each year adds enor- 
mously to the aggregate of zoological literature ; and from the work 
before us we learn that not less than 25,000 pages were, during the 
year 1864, devoted to the history of recent Zoology alone. Can we 
be surprised that genera and species have often again and again been 
redescribed, and that the lists of synonyms are often so long, when 
we bear in mind that naturalists engaged in identical pursuits are 
continually publishing their supposed discoveries in almost every 
language and every country in the world, and that the descriptions 
of species are, for the most part, not in monographs of particular 
sections of Zoology, but in the proceedings of some learned society, 
or the pages of some little-known periodical. Every zoologist must 
have frequently felt the great want of some guide, the references in 
which should act as fingerposts to point to him the directions in which 
he would be likely to obtain information respecting the object of his 
inquiry. ‘True he has not been without some such guides; but they 
have been but inefficient. Engelmann’s ‘ Bibliotheca Historico- 
Naturalis’ and Carus’s and Engelmann’s ‘ Bibliotheca Zoologica,’ 
as well as Agassiz’s ‘ Bibliographia Zoologize et Geologie,’ have 
been and must remain of great value ; but they none of them bring 
