LIKNEAN SOCIETY OE LONDON. XSl 



and fourth are in both libraries ; from the seventh to the last 

 issued (part of the thirteenth, 1861), in the Liunean only. 



"With the Nouveaux Memoires the Society commenced in 1829 

 an octavo Bulletin, destined for reports of proceedings and short 

 papers not requiring quarto illustrations; and this has continued to 

 the present time, gradually increasing in the length of papers and 

 conseqixent bulk, with the occasional addition of a very few plates. 

 Up to the fifteenth volume (1842) one volume a year was pub- 

 lished; since that two parts have appeared for each year, each one 

 forming a fair-sized volume, with a separate paging, the last re- 

 ceived being the first of the volume for 1864. This long series, 

 with a fair proportion of Greology and Physics, comprises much 

 that is valuable on the fauna and flora of the vast Kussian empire, 

 including its recent acquisitions on the lower Amur, and occa- 

 sionally short general monographs or descriptions of exotic pro- 

 ductions. Taking the last three years, we have a description of 

 Ceylon insects by Motchoulsky, a continuation of the monograph 

 of Marantiaceae, begun by Kornicke in the Nouveaux Memoires ; an 

 account, by Massalongo, of som.e New Zealand lichens, illustrated 

 by neatly coloured plates, but, as I understand, wrongly placed as 

 to genera and affinities, and the last, it is to be hoped, of a series 

 of papers by the late Turczaninow (TurtshaninofT) on the sup- 

 posed new or little known plants of the herbarium of the Univer- 

 sity of Charkoff, formerly his own. In former volumes Turczani- 

 now had published a detailed flora of the Baical-Dahurian region, 

 the result of his own investigations, and he had extensively and 

 most liberally distributed the excellent collections he had made in 

 those regions. His zeal for the science was great, and he had made 

 considerable sacrifices to increase his general herbarium, and both 

 before and after the transferring it to the University he devoted 

 himself to the arrangement and naming the specimens. In this 

 operation, whatever he could not make agree with the diagnoses 

 given in the works at his command, was set down as new, and he 

 commenced a series of papers in the Bulletin to give them names 

 and diagnoses. Unfortunately, whether from a want of a suffi- 

 cient knowledge of exotic plants, from a deficiency of materials 

 for comparison, or from the fragmentary state of many of his 

 specimens, he did not recognize many of the commonest tropical 

 species, and his papers are full of erroneous identifications, bad 

 species, mistaken affinities, and even gross blunders, which can 

 now only be corrected where we possess corresponding specimens 

 agreeing with his descriptions. He was, however, I am told, as 



