Bibliographical Notices, 295 



to the Coussapoa of Aublet. With this genus Mr. Bennett com- 

 pares it, as also with Cecropia and Musanga, a genus indicated by 

 Mr. Brown in the Appendix to Captain Tuckey's Narrative ; and 

 after noticing the characters common to all the genera named, pro- 

 ceeds to give their generic distinctions, all of them except Cecropia 

 being but little known, and one of them (Musanga) not having been 

 previously described. He adds also the characters of the male flowers 

 of the genus Myrianthus of Palisot de Beauvais, with the double view 

 of affording materials for comparison M'ith those of Musanga, (to 

 which Mr. Brown long since pointed out their resemblance), and of 

 introducing a correction in those given by M. de Beauvais. He re- 

 fers to M. Gaudichaud's classification of Urticece, in which Conocc- 

 phalus is widely misplaced ; and incidentally observes that the He- 

 dycarya of Forster, referred by M. Gaudichaud to Artocarpece, " is 

 much more nearly related to. that very distinct division of the class 

 (as Urticece are now, in accordance with Mr. Brown's views, gene- 

 rally considered) which was long since separated by Jussieu under 

 the name of Monimiece." 



The thirteenth article contains a long historical notice of the An- 

 tiaris toxicaria, Lesch., the celebrated Upas or Poison-tree of Java, 

 on the subject of which so many marvellous tales have long passed 

 current. Mr. Bennett traces the history of this poison through a long 

 succession of writers, from De Bry's ' India Orientalis,' down to the 

 most recent times, including among many other of the older names, 

 those of Herbert, Bontius, Tavernier, Nieuhof, Spielman, Kamel, 

 Kaempfer, Valentyn, and Rumphius ; all of whom relate, either from 

 their own observation or on the testimony of natives of Macassar, 

 Java, Lu9on and the Moluccas, various particulars concerning it. 

 In these accounts much of truth and no little falsehood are min- 

 gled together ; " quis enim," as Ksempfer observes, " quicquam 

 ex Asiaticorum ore referat, quod figmentis non implicetur ?" In 

 all these cases, indeed the falsehood may fairly be traced to the ex- 

 travagant assertions of ignorant or interested natives, and implies in 

 the authors named no greater blame than that of a credulity com- 

 mon to the age in which they lived. Not so in the narrative of 

 Fsersch, by which the fabulous history of the tree has been most 

 widely spread, and which has since been demonstrated to be, from 

 beginning to end, a tissue of inventions, founded on the absurd and 

 marvellous stories current among the natives, and scarcely relieved 

 by a single particle of truth, except the fact (then for the first time 

 stated, but long afterwards considered doubtful) that the tree grows 

 in the island of Java. The inquiries of travellers were, however. 



