JAN. — MAR. 1857.] 
Notices of Books. 
^69 
cloud. It is thought that the new worm may prove commercially 
important, and Government is solicited to institute experiments re- 
garding its productive powers. In connection with silk it was 
announced at the late meeting of the Society, that the new plan of 
manufacturing silk directly from the bark of the mulberry tree is 
rapidly gaining ground. Signor Lotteri, the inventor, announces 
that four companies have been started in Europe for carrying out 
the system, one of which has already paid him down 25,000/. for 
the privilege." — Alleii's Lidian Mail, ZQth Jan, 1857. 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Oriental Literature. 
The Poems of the Hudsailis, edited in the Arabic from an ori- 
ginal MS. in the University of Leyden and translated with annota- 
tions by J. G. L. KosEGARTEN ; vol. I. containing the Arabic 
text, London, 1854, 4to. 
This work is now in course of publication by the Council of the 
Oriental Translation Fund. The first volume contains only the Arabic 
text. M. KosEGAETEN purposes to give a complete translation 
in the second and the remainder of the text in the third. 
This collection of poetical compositions or Dewans contains the 
National poems of a tribe of Bedouins — the Hudsailis or Hodeilites 
and belongs to the same class of compositions before the -^ra of Mo- 
hammad 2i^i\xe Moallakat, the Hamasa of Bohtoei and the Kitah' 
al'Aghani of which latter work Mr. Kosegarten has also com- 
menced the publication. The MS. which is a unique copy, in the 
Library at Leyden, is incomplete, the 2nd volume only being in 
existence but it contains the commentary of Assitkaei, the com- 
piler of the work. 
In connection with the literature of this epoch are the Ansab or 
geneological tables of the Arab races published by M. Wastenfeld 
at Gottingen from the writings of Mohammad bin al Hasan ibn 
DoEEiD, a poet and philologist of the 3rd century of the Hijri. 
