ol2 Notices of BooJcs. [no. 4, new series, 
Natural History. 
Flora Algeria.— M. Corson is continuing to publish his Flora of Algeria, 
and is about to take a 4th Botanical trip into that country. He proposes 
to examine the numerous cases of the so called desert of Sahara. On the 
mountains of Atlas at each journey species have been discovered which 
were supposed to be peculiar to Egypt or Arabic— Phil Jour. April 
1857. a 
American Oology.—^' We have in the press the first part of Dr. Brewer's 
great work on American Oology. It will include the rapacious birds, and 
perhaps the swallows. There will be five qiUrto plates to this part, all the 
figures taken in photograph, from the o^-iginal eggs, and printed in colors. 
The result is extremely beautiful and accurate." — {Letter from Dr. Bird, 
Smithsonian institute, Washington.) — Ed. Phil. Jour. *^pril 1857. 
Mr. F. Moore communicated a paper ' On the habits of some birds ob- 
served in the plains of N. W. India in 1849,' by the Rev. T. Fhilipps, 
Baptist Missionary. The names of the birds described in this paper (sixty 
in number) had been determined by comparison with specimens in the 
Museum of the Hon. East India Comjjany. 
Mr. Moore read a paper containing descriptions of some new species of 
Lepidopterous insects from Northern India, characterized as follows : — 
Pieris Nama, E. Doubleday, M. S., P. Seta,, Moore ; P. Sanaca, Moore ; 
P. Indra, Moore ; P. Durvasa, Moore ; and Papilio Janaka, Moore. — D. 
W. M. 
Miscel'aneoits. 
Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, by Lady Shell, London, 
1857, in 8vo. (402 pages.) 
This book is thus noticed in the Joiamal Asiatique for April — 
May 1857, and we have much pleasure in endorsing the reviewer's 
opinions upon it, who informs us that, — 
" Lady Sheil accompanied her husband Colonel Shell, during his em- 
bassy in Persia and passed 3 5 years in the country, principally at Tehe- 
ran ; she made once a voyage to Ispahan and passed a summer in the 
mountains of Mazenderan. An elegant accomplished lady, she took the 
trouble to learn to speak Persian, and she communicates to us, in an agree- 
able and unpretending manner, her observations on the manners and cus- 
toms of the country, and on every thing that she had an opportunity of 
