270 Analjjtical Notices of Books. 



selves under tlie name of 7v. Icpturus. It appears to be the same 

 with the Kanguroo-Ilat, the Potorous muriniis. The specimen 

 brought home by the expedition was from tlie neighbourhood of 

 Port Jackson ; the head of a second species of the same genus 

 found on Dirk Ilatich's Island is the only fragment of the P. 

 Lesueur ; and a skeleton in the Paris Museum differs so con- 

 siderably in the form of the head as to appear to constitute a 

 third species, to wliich the name of P. Peron is proposed io be 

 given. The only true Kanguroo described is equally unfortunate 

 with the preceding. It is the Kungiirus lanigcr of MM. Quoy 

 and Gaimard, whose name must yield to the prior claim of A'. 

 rufus assigned to the same animal by M. Dcsmarest. 



In an appendix relative to the Seals and the Celacea, which 

 forms the fourth chapter, the aulhours have embodied much curious 

 information with respect to the habits of these animals, the ob- 

 servation of which so seldom falls to the lot of those who are 

 capable of rendering it available to the purposes of science. Tlie 

 common opinion represents the Whales as almost continually 

 throwing up jets of water from their spiracles. That this occa- 

 sionally happens cannot be doubted ; but it is only under peculiar 

 circumstances. In many hundreds of these animals which MM. 

 Quoy and Gaimard observed in the course of their voyage in the 

 Southern Seas, it occurred to them to witness this fact only once, 

 in a Whale which was on shore on one of the Malouine Islands, 

 and which at ebb-tide threw up water from its spiracles, respir- 

 ing at the same time with considerable noise. Much interesting 

 matter is also contained in tiiis appendix relative to the fishery, 

 for which the authours are chiefly indebted to the crews of the 

 different whalers with which they met; this, however, we must 

 pass by, and proceed to the enumeration of the new species 

 noticed by tliem. These include the Physeter polj/cijpus, so 

 named from the protuberances on its back, which is figured from 

 a drawing communicated by Captain Ilammat, but is not de- 

 scribed ; the Dclp/iinus Rhinoceros, which is black, spotted, with 

 a protuberance resembling a horn on its occiput ; the D. albigeuUj 

 altogether black, with a large white fascia on each side of the 



