1871.] Notices of Boohs. 255 



forms, the structure of the muscles and nerves, the circulatory 

 and respiratory systems, the generative apparatus, male and 

 female, and the embryology or metamorphoses. With the more 

 important classes, the classification into orders is also given. 

 The illustrations are abundant and really beautiful. To illustrate 

 their completeness, we may mention that in the class of Annelida, 

 we have drawings of the dental system, digestive organs, 

 circulatory apparatus, respiratory organs, and generative 

 apparatus of the leech: of the viscera, circulation, sexual organs, 

 and eggs of the earth-worm ; besides others to illustrate other 

 families of the order. These engravings would have been still 

 more useful had they been accompanied with some explanation 

 of the scale to which they had been enlarged or reduced ; it is 

 somewhat perplexing to find facing one another on opposite 

 pages drawings of Pulex irritans and the stag-beetle occupying 

 just the same portion of the page ; the beautiful drawing, too, 

 of the head of a flea loses half its value from having no indi- 

 cation of its scale. 



Dr. Nicholson's Manual is of considerably smaller size, and 

 is more exclusively a book for the class-room. Pursuing the 

 same general plan, a considerably larger proportionate space 

 is devoted to the higher classes of animals, nearly one-half the 

 volume being given up to the Vertebrata. Useful elements 

 which are not found in the larger manual are an account of the 

 distribution of each class in area and in time, together with 

 brief descriptions, in some case accompanied with drawings, of 

 those extinct orders the fossil remains of which so often fill up 

 the gaps between widely differentiated existing forms. The 

 drawings are numerous and good, though not of the same high 

 degree of finish. As a student's book it may be safely recom- 

 mended. 



Notes on the Natural History of the Strait of Magellan and West 

 Coast of Patagonia. By Robert O. Cunningham, M.D., &c. ; 

 with Map and Illustrations. Edinburgh : Edmonston and 

 Douglas, 1871. 



The voyages of Mr. Darwin and Dr. Hooker have made us 

 familiar with the main features of the natural history of the 

 southern extremity of the American Continent, to our knowledge 

 of which Dr. Cunningham now adds a useful and interesting 

 contribution. An accomplished naturalist spending the greater 

 part of four years attached to an expedition to that seldom- 

 visited land, could not fail to make many valuable observations 

 and some interesting discoveries, which are here recorded in 

 the form of a continuous narrative, though without much attempt 

 to generalise from them. It is very singular to find in that remote 

 land plants not differing specifically from some familiar European 



