132 Bibliographical Notices, 



a Liane, has, when in a condition where it can freely extend 

 itself, the usual symmetrical wood-structure. But Uttewall * 

 observed a stem of this plant flattened into a band-like form, 

 arising from pressure against the angle of a wall, which form it 

 still retained after it had grown up far beyond it, so that the 

 numerous shoots afterwards developed all partook more or less 

 of this character. 



[As somewhat relating to the present subject, may be men- 

 tioned a curious fact lately pointed out by Prof. A. E. Ross- 

 massler. He states that the Firs are subject to a peculiarity in 

 the growth of their wood which causes them to split obliquely 

 instead of perpendicularly, and that this occurs, for instance in 

 Pinus sylvestris, throughout whole estates, in Bavaria, and it is 

 necessary to raise young plants from foreign healthy seed, since 

 the seeds of these twisted firs inherit the peculiarity of the wood. 

 —Rep.] 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



Rare and Remarkable Animals of Scotland, represented from living 

 Subjects ; with practical Observations on their Nature. By Sir 

 John Graham Dalyell, Bart. Volume first, containing fifty- 

 three coloured Plates. London : John Van Voorst, Paternoster 

 Row, 1847. 4to. Pp. 270. 



We could wish that this noble volume was in the hands of every 

 one of our readers. It is, always excepting Ellis's * Essay on Coral- 

 lines,' the most valuable contribution to Zoophytology ever made by 

 one individual, and contains more that is true and of interest in the 

 economy of zoophytes than any other work hitherto published. 



The name of Sir John Graham Dalyell has been familiar to the 

 naturalists of Scotland for nearly half a century. He first introduced 

 himself to their notice by a translation of some of the physiological 

 writings of Spallanzani, a naturalist of congenerous dispositions with 

 himself; and he subsequently became better known by his valuable 

 contributions to our national Encyclopaedias, and by his little book 

 on the Planarice, the most interesting by far of any publication on 

 this family of worms. But beyond his native country Sir John was 

 scarcely known until after the meeting of the British Association in 

 Edinburgh in 1834, when the naturalists of England even were taken 

 by surprise on finding one unbruited, — an accomplished scholar and 

 learned antiquary, — who had studied natural history in a more phi- 

 losophical spirit, and with a less selfish love, than any more blazoned 

 compeer, and who had learned much in the school of nature of what 

 was secret and hidden to others. Henceforth this quietly perse- 



* Tijdschr. v. Natuurl. Gesch. en Physiol, iv. 00 



