lINlfEAN SOCIEXr QF LONDON. IxXXVli 



In Zoology, I observe a considerable portion of the recent volume 

 of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria occupied by 

 Australian Coleoptera described by Count F. de Castelnau. 



Dr. Hooker's ' Handbook of the New-Zealand Flora' has been com- 

 pleted. The Industrial Exhibition in that Colony, in 1805, has been 

 the occasion of several Essays, of which those of Mr. BuUor, on the 

 Ornithology, and of Dr. Colenso, on tho Vegetation of New Zealand, 

 belong to our Science ; and from Dr. Lander-Lindsay, besides seve- 

 ral detached papers, chiefly on the Lichens of that Colony, we have 

 a separate Essay, entitled * Contributions to New-Zealand Botany.' 



Messrs. Finsch and Hartlaub have given an account of the Birds 

 of the Viti, Samoa, and Tonga Islands in their work entitled ' Orni- 

 thologie Central-Polynesiens ; ' and Dr. Seemann's beautifully illus- 

 trated Flora of the Viti or Fiji Islands has reached its seventh part. 



Mr. E. L. Layard's ' Birds of South Africa,' a descriptive catalogue 

 of all known species south of the 28th parallel, published at Cape 

 Town, presents some defects which have been pointed out by various 

 writers, but must be welcome to zoologists as a first attempt to bring 

 together all tho birds belonging to an interesting region. Mr. lloland 

 Trimen has published an excellent volume on the llhopalocerous 

 Lepidoptera of South Africa, and has communicated to us a paper 

 on Mimetic Analogies among the Lepidoptera of South Africa, which 

 will appear in the usual winter part of our Transactions. Dr. 

 "Wallengren's paper on South-African Heterocerous Lepidoptera has 

 been already mentioned. There are now in the Cape Colony several 

 active resident botanists who are contributing much towards making 

 us more perfectly acquainted with the extraordinarily varied vege- 

 tation of that country, among whom I would specially mention Mr. 

 M'Owan, of Grahamstown, Mr. Bolus, of Graafreynet, Mr. and Mrs. 

 Hutton, of Bedford, and Mr. Sanderson and Mr. M'Ken, of Natal ; 

 and although the great ' Flora Capensis,' undertaken by the late Dr. 

 Harvey and Dr. Sonder, has as yet made no progress since the 

 lamented death of the former, yet we hope that arrangements are 

 being carried on for its completion ; and in the meantime the new 

 edition of Dr. Harvey's ' Genera of Cape Plants,' which was nearly 

 complete at his decease, is about to appear under the able editor- 

 ship of Dr. Hooker. 



In South America, Dr. Burmeister has established a publishing 

 society at Buenos Ayres ; but his papers have been hitherto on Pa- 

 laeontological Mammalogy, which does not come within the scope of 

 my review. Dr. Fritz Mueller, of Desterro, continues to send over in- 



