i REVIEWS. 39 
turn over a bit of plank in search of land shells, to my great 
delight, there lay snugly coiled up, one of the famous “coral 
snakes!” Taking his head between my finger and thumb, I 
let him coil around my wrist, and made the best of my way 
to the office of the Railroad Survey, determined to prove the 
harmless nature of the pretty little creature. Upon produ- 
cing it, however, two of my English friends disappeared 
through the window, and the one before mentioned reaching 
the loft over head, in a great hurry, seized an empty bottle 
(there were plenty of them there), and adjured me in forci- 
ble language to depart and take the snake with me, on pain 
of several things too disagreeable to mention. Doubting 
the efficacy of argument in the premises, I consigned the 
snake to an alcohol tank, and took the story to the supper 
table, where it afforded us a fund of amusement for the 
evening, and was by no means the most disagreeable remi- 
niscence of my afternoon in Greytown. 

REVIEWS. 
—— M Óoe—— 
IN THE East INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO.*—The object of Prof. 
Scd s travels was the collection a a set of shells from the island of 
Amboina and its immediate neighborhood th m 
to have fully succeeded, and thanks to his energy and perseverance, we now 
have in this country a full suite of the species first described by Rumphius. 
The present volume merely states this object and describes the mode of 
its attainment. Otherwise it is a diary of the author’s daily experience 
among these tropical islands, in which mountains, lakes, rivers, plants 
and animals, incidents and accidents, are all described as they happened. 
The coast tribes are said to be of a mild disposition, but those of th 
interior mountainous parts of the different islands, wild and savage; in 
some cases cannibals. The ethnological characteristics of the different 
e gi he: 
eniri a sb sometimes accompanied by photographs and drawings of 
great 
“AU Mai náiivas (Malays, of Java) are remarkably short in stature, the 

in the East Indian Archipelago. By Albert S. Bickmore, M. A. 8vo, pp. 553. 
Rip otitis QVI OL. Rak 
= 
