182 M. F. Cuvier De VBistoire 



perspiring apparatus, consisting of soft, elastic, spiral canals ex- 

 tending across the cutis, and having at their mouths a small epider- 

 mic valve, which is usually shut. Athhj, The inhalenls or absorbing 

 vessels, are extremely fine, smooth, branched, and easily torn, anas- 

 tomosing with each other, and forming a net-work in the skin, un- 

 derneath the papillae ; they have valves, btlrfy, There is the blenno- 

 ge/ie apparatus, composed of secretory glands and excretory canals, 

 which open among the papillae, situated on the true skin, and pro- 

 duce a mucous matter which, in drying, becomes the epidermis ; and, 

 Qtkly, there is the colouring apparatus, also composed of secreting 

 glands and excreting canals, and situated in the upper layers of the 

 skin. This is assuredly a far more detailed account of the various 

 parts of that wonderful covering the skin, than any we have yet 

 happened to meet ; and appears to he alike minute and accurate. 



Leaving these introductory details, our author proceeds to the her- 

 bivorous Cetacea, to which he devotes seventy pages, containing much 

 valuable information. Nothing, however, occurs as peculiarly re- 

 quiring our notice, except some statements regarding the Stellerus of 

 Cuvier, concerning which we have a translation of the whole of Stel- 

 ler's accurate memoir in the Novae Commentaries Petropololit. As 

 this work is not easily procured we regard this as a very valuable 

 gift. Copious extracts from the memoir are to be found in Buffbn 

 and others of our more common books, but the whole will amply re- 

 pay a careful perusal. We shall here specify only two particulars ; 

 and the structure of the heart shall be the first. Many of our rea- 

 ders may rt number that an interesting account and drawing of the 

 heart of the Bugong were given by the late Sir E. Home in one of 

 the volumes of the Philosophical Transactions some fifteen years 

 ago. In this paper he states that the peculiarity seen in its heart 

 is not to be met with in any other animal. From ©teller's account, 

 however, we learn that it occurs also in the animal which is now 

 known by his name ; thus showing a curious correspondence in these 

 two genera of the herbivorous Cetacea. The heart, says Steller, 

 does not taper from the base to the apex, there to terminate in a 

 single point, but it terminates in two distinct and separate apices, 

 corresponding to the two ventricles : the separation reaches to about 

 one-third of their extent, at which place they unite, and there re- 

 semble the usual appearance exhibited by the organ. 



The other particular we shall advert to regards the mouth and 

 the masticating apparatus. It would appear that both lips are 

 double, that is, that there are first external and then internal lips. 

 When the jaws approximate, the void space they circumscribe is 



