XXS PEOCEEDIKGS 01" THE 



by Temminek on the Japan fanna, by Vrolik on the Carni- 

 vora, and by Miqiiel, Spletgerber, and De Yriese in Systematic 

 Botany. Since 1846 tbe Proceedings have been separately pub- 

 lished in an annual volume entitled Jaarboek van de Koninklijke 

 Akademie van Wetenschappen gevestigd te Amsterdam ; and an 

 octavo Journal was commenced under the title of Tijdscbriffc voor 

 de "Wis- en Natuurkimdige Wetenscbappen uitgegeven door de 

 Eerste Klasse van bet Koninklijk Nederlandscb Instituut van We- 

 tenscba,ppeu, Letterkunde en Scboone Kunsten: five volumes, with 

 a few indifferent plates, were issued, dated from 1848 to 1852, con- 

 taining very little Natural History, a few entomological papers by 

 D'AiUy, Verbuell, and JSTumann ; physiological and palseontologi- 

 cal by Vrolik ; botanical, chiefly relating to Surinam plants, by 

 Miquel, Focke, and Van HaUe ; De Vriese on a new Javan Las- 

 trcea ; Montague on Surinamese, and Miquel on other exotic fungi. 

 In 1853 the Tijdschrift was followed by Verslagen en Medede- 

 lingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling 

 Natuurkunde, but including Mathematics and Physics. In the 

 sixteen volumes, 8vo, issued up to 1864, there is rather more Natu- 

 ral History than in the previous series, consistiiig of several 

 papers on Animal Physiology, Anatomy, and Palsoontology, by 

 Vrolik, Van der Hoeven, Schroeder van der Kolk, Jasger, Schlegel, 

 Mulder, many of Bleeker's on the Ichthyology of the Archipe- 

 lago, of Australia, South Africa, South America, &c. ; Van Hasselt 

 on some Snakes ; Snellen van Vollenhoven on Indian Lepidoptera ; 

 Harting on a bird's nest ; on various points of vegetable physi- 

 ology and anatomy by Oudemans, De Vriese, and Van Halle ; on 

 some Indian Orchids by Blume ; on Kceoe, Australian Cycadeae, 

 Sliodoleia, and new Apocyneae by Miquel ; on Javan Hepaticse 

 by Van Sande La Coste ; on Javan Oaks by Oudemans ; and 

 Hymenophylleaj by Van den Bosch. 



These publications of the Dutch Academy are for the most part 

 in the Dutch language, with a few papers in French or Grerman, 

 and more or less use of Latin for technical characters. The mix- 

 ture of subjects is often very great, and particularly inconvenient 

 in the compact octavo publications where the advantages of the 

 small form and close type are quite overbalanced by the large 

 proportion of matter useless to himself which each subscriber 

 Avould be obliged to take in, thus excluding these works 

 from all but large libraries. One instance I may mention, as 

 having recently occurred to myself Miquel had in the Linnsea 

 published a detailed description of a new Surinamese plant re- 



