Bibliographical Notices. 453 



order, "a numerous tribe lately discovered, to which naturalists 

 have given the name of zoophytes/' The characteristic of this re- 

 markable group is that its members " may be propagated by dis- 

 section." The " polypus " is called an insect and a reptile within a 

 single page ; and of course the coral-polyps are insects. It seems 

 hardly credible that not much more than fifty years ago such crude 

 notions could have been gravely put forward in a respectably got-up 

 book, many of the illustrations in which are borrowed from the 

 beautiful works of the late E. T. Bennett descriptive of the Tower 

 Menagerie and. of that of the Zoological Society. 



Of course we have nothing to do with criticising a book which 

 may be regarded as completely defunct, and we have simply taken 

 it as exemplifying the sort of information that was considered 

 suitable for the general public at the date of its production. Dr. 

 Duncan and his coadjutors in ' CasaelTs Natural History ? make no 

 attempts at such original flights as we have above indicated ; but, 

 singularly enough, in the matter of the space assigned to the great 

 divisions, we find a remarkable accordance between the older and 

 the newer work. Thus, in the new Natural History, the Verte- 

 brates occupy just about three quarters of the whole book, the 

 Mammals have two volumes and a half (out of six) allotted to 

 them, and of these the Quadrutnana alone occupy more than two 

 thirds of a volume, a proportion which, notwithstanding the interest 

 attaching to those cousins of ours, we cannot but regard as excessive. 

 The Birds have about a volume devoted to them ; and the Reptiles, 

 Batrachia, and Fishes make another volume, leaving about one 

 volume and a half for the whole of the Invertebrates. The fact is, 

 the work opened as if it had been intended to extend to twenty or 

 thirty volumes ; and as it was limited to six, the later groups are 

 starved. This result is much to be regretted, as it. to a certain 

 extent, spoils what would otherwise have been an excellent book : 

 and we would suggest to the publishers that at some future date, 

 in a reissue of the work, they should add to it one, or e^en two, 

 more volumes, and get the whole of the history of the Invertebrata 

 reconstructed. If this were done it would make the best popular 

 treatise on zoology that we possess. 



Curiously enough, sitting down with ever}' intention of writing a 

 laudatory notice of this book, we have been betrayed into a long 

 statement of shortcomings. This, however, is not difficult of expla- 

 nation ; the inequality to which we have felt compelled to call atten- 

 tion is the defect of the book, which in other respects is deserving 

 of high praise. The authors, one and all, seem to have do .e their 

 work with a conscientious desire to produce a satisfactory result ; 

 and, notwithstanding some little defects here and there, it must be 

 confessed that they have been remarkably successful. Throughout 

 the Vertebrata, but especially among the Mammalia and Birds, which, 

 as we have stated, are treated at greatest length, the natural history 

 of the animals is described with a detail which we are not accus- 

 tomed to, and the scientific information given in connexion with the 

 structural characters of the groups and the general principles of 



