3S0 Scientific Intelligence — Zoology. 



we shall feel in searching the various tortuous channels, and different 

 islands with which, doubtless, Franklin's route has been beset. It 

 Mas not, therefore, without deep interest that I passed the boundary 

 which nature had set in the west to the existence of icebergs, and 

 endeavoured to form a correct idea of the cause of such a phenome- 

 non. — {Osborne's Arctic Journal, p. 94.) 



2. Faroe Islands. — Sir Walter C. Trevelyan to Professor Jameson, 

 — 2bth February 1853. My Dear Sir, As you have sometimes 

 thought notices from the Faroe Islands of sufficient interest to insert 

 in your Journal, I now send you an extract from a letter I lately 

 received, which you may, perhaps, like to publish in your next 

 Number. 



"Faroe Islands, 

 24th December 1852. 



" Turnips have been too little used here, but if the potato disease 

 continues, and it has been worse this season, I am sure they will be 

 more cultivated. As the potatoes failed, the inhabitants would have 

 been badly off, but abundance ' of whales' (Delphinus Tursio) hav- 

 ing been caught last season, in some way made up for the loss. 

 More than 2000 whales were killed in different places. In one har- 

 bour (Westmanhavn) we take them in a large net, in which more 

 than 300 have been caught at one time. The net is made of ropes, 

 200 fathoms long and ten fathoms deep, it is of sufficient strength, 

 but the whales sometimes escape under it. 



" From the year 1819 to 1843, there were killed in Westmanhavn 

 not more than 280 whales, although many shoals of them visited the 

 harbour every year, in some years more than 1000. From June 1, 

 1843, when the net was first used, up to this time, we have caught 

 2200 in Westmanhavn alone. Each whale being valued at an 

 average to produce thirty gallons of oil, makes the value gained to 

 be about £4000, besides the flesh, which furnishes abundance of 

 wholesome food." 



ZOOLOGY. 



3. Numerical List of Species of Animals. — Of the number of dis- 

 tinct specific forms of animals at present existing upon the earth's sur- 

 face, it is scarcely possible to form even an approximate estimate : since, 

 although we may be probably not far wrong in our calculation of the 

 number of existing species, in certain classes which have been espe- 

 cially studied (such as those of mammals and birds), and of which by 

 far the greater part are certainly known to us ; it is at least equally 

 probable that our present acquaintance is limited (from various 

 causes) to a very small proportion of other classes, whose total 

 amount, therefore, we can do little more than guess at. The num- 

 ber of species of mammals known to naturalists is about 1700 ; and 

 it is probable that scarcely 300 more remain to be discovered. Of 



