lxxvi 



PROCEEDINGS OE THE 



observations, aided by the vast materials collected at an enormous 

 cost during the last half-century, and now deposited at Kew or in our 

 own Museum. In Australia, Dr. Ferdinand Miiller, the eminent Go- 

 vernment Botanist of Victoria, has completed the first volume, com- 

 prising Thalamifiorae, of an elaborate account, in quarto, of the rich 

 flora of that colony, illustrated by a considerable number of litho- 

 graphic plates, which do credit to colonial art. This Flora is par- 

 ticularly valuable in showing the views in regard to the consolida- 

 tion of supposed species entertained by a scientific botanist, working 

 in a great measure upon living specimens. Of Dr. Harvey's beautifully 

 illustrated Phycologia Australica, the fourtli volume is now nearly 

 completed. 



The utility of Colonial Floras has been recognized by other Go- 

 vernments as well as our own. The practical Dutch have especially 

 applied themselves to obtaining a correct knowledge of the vegetable 

 productions of their dependencies. The numerous partial works of 

 Blume, Korthals, Hasskarl, Junghuhn, and others, some of them 

 splendidly illustrated, and, consequently, too expensive for ordinary 

 use, have been condensed into a complete Flora van Nederlandsch 

 Indie by Professor Miquel, who, in the course of six years, has given 

 us the whole of Phamogamia, in four volumes, with a supplementary 

 volume for Sumatra. We have not here, therefore, to bewail that 

 tardiness which leaves so many important works unfinished at the 

 death of their authors, or, if complete, with the first volumes an- 

 tiquated before the last make their appearance ; on the contrary, we 

 could have wished that the author had given himself a little more 

 time to work out the details with that accuracy of research which 

 we should have expected from a botanist of his well-proved ability. 



To the same class of Natural Histories of distant dependencies 

 may be referred the results of the Russian expeditions to explore 

 their newly acquired territories on the Amoor. Dr. Leopold v. 

 Sflirenck's Reiser] tmd Forschungen im Amur Landc is one of the 

 most important contributions to our knowledge of the fauna of 

 Northern Asia, and of the geographical distribution of animals, and 

 more especially of the Mammalia ; whilst M. Maximovitch's Pri- 

 mitia) Floras Amurensis is an admirable account of the botany of the 

 district as far as hitherto known, and of its physical geography in rela- 

 tion to vegetation. From the former, amongst the numerous interest- 

 ing observations it contains, wo Learn the startling fact of the existence 



of the Ti^or as a permanent and ordinary resident, even in winter, 



on tin- Amoor, or up to about the 50th degree of N. latitude, where, 

 as bhown by Maximovitch, the river is frozen over for at least six 



