Classification of Birds. 75 



of the " Icones" must be content to go without descriptive letter- 

 press to fifty-five species, or buy another and distinct work ; to say 

 nothing of the inconvenience of such an arrangement. 



Sir W. J. Hooker has presented us with figures of such a host 

 of interesting plants, that it is not possible to enter upon any de- 

 tailed observations. There is a new genus of Cruciferae established 

 at t. xliii. the characters of which we transcribe. 

 Tropidocarpum. 



Sepala oblonga, concava, basi sequalia. Petala obovato-subspa- 

 thulata. Filamenta nuda : Aniheroe subrotundse. Germen oblon- 

 gum, in stylum attenuatum. Stigma ol)tusum. Siliqua lateraliter 

 cornpressa, sessilis, polysperma, valvis acute carinatis. Dissepiment 

 turn nullum ! — Herbae parvse, annuae. Folia pinnatifida. Racemi 

 foliosi. Flores parvi, albi. Silquse erectae, nunc breves, subsilicu- 

 losae. 



A second species of this genus is figured at t. lii. Both were col- 

 lected in California by the late Mr Douglas. 



Were we to fix on any one plant figured in the hundred plates 

 before us, as pre-eminently interesting, we should select Dendrome- 

 con rigidum, Lindl. (t. xxxvii ) a papaveraceous shrub ! discover- 

 ed by the same lamented botanist in California. Let persons who 

 desire to encourage botanical science purchase this work. Its merit 

 is not to be measured by its extraordinary cheapness. 



II Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopcedia. Natural History. Natural 



History and Classijication of Birds. By W. Swainson, Esq. 



Vol. i. 12mo. London, Longman & Co. J 837. 



To complete our review of the series of volumes which have ap- 

 peared in Dr Lardner's valuable Cyclopaedia devoted to Natural 

 History, we now proceed to notice the third, " The Natural History 

 and Classification of Birds," forming the first of the second depart- 

 ment of the Vertebrata, one in which the author has already dis- 

 tinguished himself, and which he has materially advanced by his 

 numerous and valuable publications. 



After noticing the station occupied by birds among the Ver- 

 tebrata, viz. between the Mammalia and Reptilia, to the latter 

 of which he conceives its union is efiPected by the fossil genus 

 Pterodactylus, rather than to the affinity supposed to exist be- 

 tween the Penguins and Tortoises, he refers to the primary 

 types, as designated in ornithology, and which take their titles 

 from the five orders of the class, viz. the Raptorial, the Inses- 



