NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 77 
six plates. Those relating to Zoology will contain portions of 
several subjects. The botanical parts will contain no other 
subject. It is believed that the work will extend to about twelve 
volumes of 500 pages each, of Zoology, and twenty parts of 
Botany. 
Two parts of this work have already appeared. In Part I. the 
Monkeys of Central America, of which there are said to be at 
least eleven species, are described by Mr. Alston, and two of 
them, Mycetes villosus and Chrysothria oérstedi, are figured. Mr. 
Alston also contributes the first instalment of an account of the 
Bats of the region in question, the conclusion of which appears 
in Part II., with two plates. Messrs. Godman and Salvin, under- 
taking the Birds, have commenced in Part I. with the order 
Passeres, suborder Oscines, and begin their long list with the 
Thrushes, figuring three species ; and in Part II. a fourth, Turdus 
nigrescens, which looks uncommonly like our old friend the 
Blackbird. The sexes, however, of this species are said to 
present scarcely any difference in plumage. 
In the class Insects, Part I. contains an instalinent on the 
FRhopalocera, which is continued in Part II., with, altogether, 
four beautifully drawn plates. 
Mr. W. H. Bates, in Part II., commences the Coleoptera, and 
two plates are given of the species described by him. 
Hitherto a knowledge of the fauna of Central America has been 
possessed only by the few who have specially directed their 
attention towards this zoologically rich subregion. The general 
public, and indeed the majority of naturalists, may be said to 
know little or nothing on the subject, for they have had no 
means of information beyond the scattered papers which have 
appeared at intervals in the ‘ Proceedings of the Zoological 
Society’ (chiefly lists of species collected, with the collector’s 
notes appended), and these have only served to show what a 
wonderfully rich field awaited exploration by naturalists, and 
how much a comprehensive work on the fauna and flora of such 
a country was needed. This desideratum is at length to be 
supplied, and in a most satisfactory manner, if we may judge by 
the first two parts which have been issued of the work now in 
progress. ‘The undertaking is a most onerous one, involving an 
amount of personal labour, and a sacrifice of time, trouble, and 
expenditure, which none but the most enthusiastic naturalists, 
