Voyage Scientifique en Moree. 347 



body of the work itself. There is too visible a tendency to assume airs 

 of exclusive intelligence, and reduce everything- to the petty scale of the 

 little circle or clique which were brought together. " Nous," " un de 

 nous," &c. occur rather too often, whilst the works of others, which 

 might have assisted them, are either unnoticed, or mentioned so slight- 

 ly, that it would appear to be the result of force, rather than from 

 that general republican feeling which ought to animate those who 

 hold prominent situations in the scientific body. We regret any ten- 

 dency to this failing the more, from seeing its effect on our own lite- 

 rary and scientific societies, the tendency in which this evil is so strong, 

 and the difficulty so great, of avoiding the forming petty oligarchies, 

 with their moment of splendour, followed by stagnation, twaddle and 

 decay. It will be a real loss to the world, if this spirit (as it is beginning 

 to be thought,) seize on the French ; but to themselves it will be still 

 heavier, for it will entail the certain falling from the " high estate" to 

 which the great men who have lately departed had raised them. The lead 

 once lost will not easily be regained. Of the littleness we complain of, 

 one of the common forms is the fear of being " devance," and the 

 carefully abstaining from any connection of the observations made by 

 others in the corresponding zone of Europe, which, especially those on 

 Italy and Dalmatia, might have been introduced in a work of this sort, 

 where some general views of science might have been looked for, as well 

 as the more isolated facts which came to their knowledge. As, how- 

 ever, this appears not to have entered into the speculation of MM. de la 

 Commission, we shall proceed to analyse the information which they 

 have presented to us. 



Mammalia. — It would seem incredible that of the bats we should 

 only have V. murinus and pipistrellus mentioned. In a country like 

 Greece, which abounds in caverns and retreats suited to the genus, we 

 looked for a very different result. The very treasuries of Atreus and 

 Merigas, or the walls of Messene and the vaults of Megarpelia might 

 have been ransacked, to extend the scanty list, in forming which we 

 fear little attention has been paid. 



Traces of moles were observed, especially in the elevated table- 

 lands which form the centre of the Morea, but the species was not 

 made out. It is most probably the Aspalax or T. cceca of Savi. 

 They are said to disappear during summer, — no doubt retiring to the 

 marshes or to the depths of the shady forests, where the soil is easier 

 to work, and the food more abundant, than in the open grounds, which 

 become indurated with the rays of the burning sun. 



The wild-cat, F. catus ? is extremely common, especially in the cen- 



