LINNEAI^" SOCIETY OF LONDON. XIX 



Eeptiles ; whilst the value of the book is greatly increased by the 

 beautiful plates with which it is illustrated, and of which it is 

 sufficient to say that they are from the pencil of Mr. Gr. H. Ford. 

 A work of almost equal value with the one to which we have just 

 referred, but taking a zoological instead of a geographical limit for 

 its subject-matter, is the elaborate memoir " On the G-eographical 

 distribution of the Chelonia," by Dr. Strauch, in the ' Memoires de 

 I'Academie Imperiale des Sciences de St. Petersbourg ; ' and a 

 smaller work, a history of British Eeptiles, by Mr. M. C. Cooke, 

 although designed for popular purposes, is, from the spirit in which 

 it has been executed, quite worthy of mention here, 



M. Dumeril has lately made some observations on the develop- 

 ment of that curious Batrachian the Axolotl {Siredon mexicanus), 

 which may, perhaps, eventually lead to a modification of our views 

 as to the nature of that animal, and perhaps of the so-called 

 Perennibranchiate Batrachia generally. Prom his communications 

 to the French Academy of Sciences in November last, we learn 

 that young animals produced from ova deposited by long-gilled 

 Axolotls in the Menagerie at the Grarden of Plants, after attaining 

 an age of eight months, and a size about equal to that of their pa- 

 rents, suddenly underwent a change, losing the branchial tufts, 

 and becoming considerably modified both in external appearance 

 and in some points of internal structure. These observations 

 open up the curious question, whether the Axolotls which have 

 been living for two years in Paris, and from the ova of which these 

 young animals have been reared, are really only larval (or tad- 

 pole) forms of some species the perfect condition of which is in- 

 dicated by M. Dumeril' s specimens. We may also mention two 

 elaborate memoirs on the anatomy of the Batrachia, — namely, the 

 first number of ' Abhandlungen iiber die Perennibranchiaten und 

 Derotremen,' by Dr. J. G. Fischer, devoted to the description of 

 the anatomy of the hyoid and branchial arches and their muscles 

 in various species of the Perennibranchiate group ; and Professor 

 Hyrtl's anatomy of Cryptohranchus japonictis. 



The most important contributions to Ichthyological literature 

 during the past two years are the continuation of Dr. Griinther's 

 Catalogue of Pishes in the British Museum, and the commence- 

 ment of an " Histoire Naturelle des Poissons," by M. Auguste 

 Dumeril, in Eoret's Suites a Bulfon. Of the former, the fifth 

 volume was published in 1864, and carries the revision of the true 

 bony fishes to the com^mencement of the order Physostomi, the 

 last extensive order of that subclass. This valuable work may now, 



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