534 Analytical Notices of BooJcs. 



tion, founded as his facts universally are on the most patient and 

 laboured investigation. That such has been the case on the pre- 

 sent occasion, is proved, by the references to the various collections 

 of Europe, nearly the vi'hole of which have been visited in the 

 progress of his work. Nor are the descriptions founded only on 

 living or on set-up specimens ; to trace them with more accuracy 

 and to obtain a more ample view of their frequent variations, he 

 has also had recourse to the warehouses of furriers in all the prin- 

 cipal commercial towns, without a continual examination of which, 

 he repeats again and again, no certainty can exist with respect to 

 the species of Fells. All those which he has admitted appear ill 

 fact to be founded on numerous specimens, with two exceptions 

 only ; and it is well worthy of remark, thai the unique skins of 

 both these sjjccies zcere purchased in London, to adorti the musewfi 

 of the Netherlands. On this we need offer no comment. The 

 British Zoologist cannot fail to apply the fact. 



Memoires de la Societe d^IIistoire Naturelle de Paris. Tome ii. 

 (Premiere Partie). 4to. pp. 248. Plates xiii. 



Of the papers contained in the present portion of a volume of 

 the Transactions of the newly established Society of Natural 

 History of Paris, one alone relates to recent Zoology. In this, 

 a *' Notice on the animal of the genus Argonauta," the Baron de 

 Ferussac enters into the discussion of a question, the peculiar in- 

 terest of which is universally acknowledged. Almost from the 

 earliest period to which the records of natural history ascend, the 

 relation borne to the elegant shell of the Argonauta Argo by the 

 Cephalopode, which is occasionally found to inhabit it, has been 

 a subject of dispute. While some have regarded the shell as being 

 actually constructed by this animal, others have believed that the 

 animal is merely a parasite, seizing like a Pagurus upon an empty 

 shell, and having like that Crab, no share whatever in its forma- 

 tion. The latter of these opinions is stated by Pliny to have been 

 advanced by Mutian , it has been successively adopted by a long 



