Bibliographical Notices. 139 



As far as we can judge from the results, it would appear that 

 some very similar rule must have guided our author in his literary 

 labours ; and at all events, we may safely say that he is one of the 

 greatest proficients in the art of scissors and paste. Of the little 

 work whose title stands at the head of tliis article, nearly a third 

 consists of acknowledged quotations from the works of Gosse, John- 

 ston, Forbes, Bell, Dalyell, Baird, &c. ; fully another third is abs- 

 tracted, with more or less verbal alteration, from the same authori- 

 ties, and the remainder is twaddle. 



In his preface Mr. Sowerby apologizes for his limited acquaintance 

 with the " JJydroid Zoojihijtcx," as well as with some other "animal 

 organisms." If he had inchuled the whole range of Zoology in this 

 avowal of ignorance, he would have been nearer the mark. An utter 

 want of knowledge is observable in almost every page : names are 

 continually misspelt (as, for examj)le, Acephala for Acalepha, which 

 occurs in two or three places) ; Johnston's definition of Zoophytes, 

 which applies to both the Polvpes and Polyzoa, is given as belonging 

 to the former only ; and as if to make up for this, the four species of 

 Polyzoa to which the author refers are placed, three of them \vith 

 the Hydroid Zoophytes, and the fourth {Alcyonidium) with Alcyo- 

 nium, amongst the Asteroida. Circumstances such as the presence 

 of thread-cells in the Polypes, are also referred to repeatedly as if 

 peculiar to certain species, simply because they are mentioned in 

 some quotation, although the author informs his readers at the out- 

 set (in a passage borrowed from Gosse) that this is the case in all 

 Polypes. There are some curious confessions of ignorance in dif- 

 ferent parts of the work, as, for instance, at p. 209, where we find 

 that the author's " only opportunity of observing a living specimen 

 of the Entomostracous division of Crustacea was that afforded me by 

 the attendant at the Zoological Society's Fish-house, who had just 

 taken from a pike a specimen of AryuJus foliaceus." 



This primitive ignorance, of which there is abundant proof, would 

 perhaps have been of less importance had the autlior taken the 

 trouble to study his subject as he went on ; but the idea that there 

 was any necessity for such an exertion as tliis appears never to have 

 entered his mind. Even the portions copied with modifications from 

 other works are often disfigured by considerable blunders, as, for ex- 

 ample, in the following beautifully intelligible passage (p. 1G4), which 

 is evidently derived from Forbes's Star-fishes. After speaking of the 

 oral and anal openings of the Echinodermata, our author tells us 

 that "whatever relative j)Ositions these two openings take, the intes- 

 tinal canal leading from one to the other is winding, and is attached 

 to the inside of the shelly case by means of what is called an integu- 

 ment (!), as well as all the internal lining, with vibratile cilia, and 

 which is connected with the function of respiration. They are be- 

 lieved to possess also a muscular apparatus, which has pulsations and 

 branching veins connected with it, like the heart in more advanced 

 animals." We need not dwell on the elegance and perspicuity of 

 tliese passages, but the muscular apparatus which has " pulsations 

 connected with it" would be a curiosity to see. 



