XX PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



therefore, be regarded as approaching its completion. The first 

 volume of M. Dumeril's work is devoted to the typical Chondro- 

 pterygii of Cuvier (the Elasmobranchi of modern authors), in- 

 cluding the Sharks, Eays, and Chimseras. This volume contains 

 an elaborate anatomical introduction and historical analysis of the 

 authors who have treated of these fishes, and systematic descrip- 

 tions of the groups and species. 



The seventh volume of the Memoires de I'Academie de St. 

 Petersbourg contains an elaborate memoir on the Mormyridge,"Die 

 [Famihe der Mormyren", by Dr. Marcusen, which is especially 

 valuable from the careful comparative anatomical investigation 

 which the author has bestowed upon these Eishes. The published 

 portion of the Zoology of the voyage of the Austrian frigate 

 Novara includes the descriptions of the new fishes collected, by 

 Professor Kner ; and Professor Bleeker has continued his magni- 

 ficent folio ' Atlas Ichthyologique des Indes Orientales Neer- 

 landaises.' The only ichthyological publication of local interest, to 

 which we need call your attention, is Mr. Couch's History of the 

 Fishes of the British Islands, the last portions of which have ap- 

 peared within the last two years. Although essentially a popu- 

 lar work, it contains, as might have been expected from the re- 

 putation of the author, a great number of interesting observations 

 on the habits of our British Pishes ; and the plates, although not 

 pretending to great scientific accuracy, are in general sufficiently 

 good to aff'ord considerable assistance to the student in deter- 

 mining the species. 



On the Mollusca, the late Mr. Lovell Reeve bad up to a recent 

 period continued his ' Conchologia Iconica,' chiefly illustrating 

 genera of bivalve mollusca. And of detached papers we may notice 

 the memoir of Messrs. Alder and Hancock on a Collection of 

 Nudibranchiate Mollusca made in India by Mr. Elliot, published 

 in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, which makes us 

 acquainted with many very singular forms of those creatures, and 

 one by M. Schwartz von Mohrenstern on Sissoa (" Ueber die 

 Pamilie der Pissoiden," part ii.), published in the Denkschriften 

 der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien for 1864. 



If the contributions to the natural history of the Mollusca 

 during the last two years have not been particularly numerous or 

 important, this is by no means the case with the next great 

 division of the animal kingdom, that of the Arthropoda, or Insecta 

 in the Linnean sense. Here, especially in entomology properly 

 so called, we have a mass of literature from which it would not be 



