Ixxxii PKOCEEDlTilGS OF THE 



well as Messrs. Gervais and Coquerel, have detailed the skeletal 

 characters of the Dodo. 



Prof, Lacordaire, in the seventh volume of his ' Genera des Coleo- 

 pt^res,' has concluded his classification of Curculionidae, together 

 with that of the two or three smaller families which, with the true 

 Weevils, constitute the great division of the Ehynchophorous Beetles. 

 That there is much difference of opinion among entomologists as to 

 the value of the pxinciplcs upon which Lacordaire has founded his 

 main divisions of Curculionida) cannot be denied; hut whatever 

 views may be entertained upon this point, there is no doubt that he 

 has made a great step towards the reduction of an excessively diffi- 

 cult and hitherto almost chaotic group into something like order. 

 The Abbe de Marseul's periodical ' L'Abeille,' which has been 

 regularly continued, seems at present to be entirely devoted to 

 European Coleoptera, several groups of Avhich have been treated 

 mouographically in its pages. 



M. Quatrefages's great work in the Suites a Buffon, the ' Histoire 

 Naturelle des Anneles marins et d'eau douce,' notwithstanding 

 some grave defects (which have been indicated by M. Claparede of 

 Geneva), must be regarded as making an epoch in the study of 

 Annelides. To all future investigators of these interesting creatures 

 it will be indispensable ; and the wonder is, considering the diffi- 

 culty of the subject, not that the author should have fallen into 

 some errors, but that he has succeeded so well in bringing together 

 the elements of our knowledge of so intricate a group. M. Quatre- 

 fages includes the Gryphea (Sipunculidae, &c.) in the scheme of his 

 work, but excludes the Turbellaria. 



Amongst the most recent French botanical publications the 

 first place must be given to Le Maout and Decaisne's * Traite 

 generale de Botanique descriptive et analylique,' in large quarto, 

 of which every page is copiously illustrated with most instructive 

 woodcuts. The first part is a general elementary treatise of mor- 

 phological and structural botany; and the second and principal 

 part an exposition of the natural orders — not entering into quite 

 so much detail as is done in Lindley's 'Yegetable Kingdom,' but 

 yet in some measure superseding that great work, of which the 

 last edition is now fifteen years old, and which, after the loss of its 

 lamented author, would scarcely admit of a new edition without re- 

 modelling so as to make it no longer Lindley's own. ISJM. Le Maout 

 and Decaisne appear to have verified much by their own observa- 

 tions ; and although two or three minor points have been indicated 



