58 Bibliographical Notices. 



and OS petrosum brought from New Zealand. This bladebone, 

 although it agrees in general form with that of the European 

 species, differs from it in the outline being more oblique, having 

 the front edge of the scapula more erect, and the back edge 

 lower and more directed backwards than in the bladebone of 

 Megaptera longimana of the North Sea and North Atlantic 

 Ocean. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



MammaUa, Recent and Extinct. An Elementary Treatise for the use 

 of the Public Schools of New South Wales. By A. "VV. Scott, M.A. 

 Sydney : Thomas Richards, Government Printer, 1873. 8yo, pp. 

 141 and xix. Price 2s. 6d. 



The Preface informs us that " The following pages, briefly descrip- 

 tive of the economy of Seals, Dugongs, and Whales, and of their 

 principal fossil allies, form the second part or Section B of an ' Ele- 

 mentary Treatise on the Mammaha,' designed for the use of the 

 more advanced pupils in the Puhlie Schools of this country under the 

 direction of the Council of Education. 



" "Wliatever information we possess upon the natural history of the 

 finned mammals, particularly in a popular yet scientific form, has 

 been so scantily and unequally distrihuted, that in this dhectiou a 

 comparatively new field may be said to be open to the teacher as 

 well as to the youthful inquirer. 



" Influenced also by the great commercial value of the Pinnata, I 

 have felt anxiously desirous to direct without further delay the at- 

 tention, and thus possibly secure the sympathy, of readers other than 

 students to the necessity of prompt legislative interference in order 

 to protect the oil- and fur-producing animals of our hemisphere, or 

 at least some of them, against the wanton and unseasonable acts 

 committed by the unrestrained trades — and thus not only to prevent 

 the inevitable extermination of this valuable group, but to utihze 

 their eminently beneficial quahties into a methodical and profitable 

 industry. 



" Keeping steadily in view these two objects, whose importance I 

 trust will bear me out in deviating from my original intention in 

 the order of the issue of publication, I have endeavoured : — first, 

 to interest the youthful mind with selections of weU authenticated 

 anecdotes of the general habits of these peculiar animals, accom- 

 panied, however, by those drier details of structural characters essen- 

 tially requisite to assist the more advanced and thoughtful student 

 to a better understanding of the generic distinctions, and to aid 

 him as a work of reference or descriptive catalogue, should he be 

 disposed in after-life to prosecute his researches in this difiicult and 



