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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
ZOOLOGICAL. 
The earth, air, and sea, are peopled with inhabitants, to which 
systematic zoological works may be regarded as so many directories 
containing their names and addresses. But so numberless are their 
denizens, that it can lie no matter of surprise that many should be 
overlooked and omitted from the earlier editions ; so that a running 
supplement becomes necessary, to receive the names of new visitors 
which from time to time reveal themselves to the prying eyes of in- 
truding zoologists, who scour over untrodden deserts, watch in lonely 
solitudes, and scrape the bottom of the deep sea, in the hope of bringing 
to the light of science some retiring creature which has hitherto eluded 
the inquisitive gaze of the ardent naturalist. Such running supplements 
ai’e numerous, and are enriched by the labours of workers in many 
countries and in many departments ; and it is proposed that the present 
article, and those which succeed it, should serve as an index to these 
supplements — bringing under the reader’s attention the most notable 
of the distinguished strangers which are thus unwillingly and un- 
wittingly rescued from the fate of “ blushing unseen.” 
It might naturally be expected that the additions thus made to our 
knowledge of the animal inhabitants of the globe, after so long periods 
of research had passed by, should consist chiefly, if not exclusively, of 
the smaller terrestrial animals. There are, however, some large tracts of 
the earth’s surface so little explored by the European, that we cannot as- 
sert that terrestrial animals equalling, or even surpassing, in size those with 
which we are acquainted, do not exist. Thus, circumstances have re- 
cently occurred which render it a matter of high probability that a 
colossal bird similar to the Dinornis, if it be not the Moa itself, still roams 
about in the district of Nelson, in New Zealand. The Government sur- 
veyors have more than once come upon footsteps which struck them with 
as much astonishment as did that of Friday surprise the solitary 
Robinson Crusoe — footsteps whose length was fourteen inches, and spread 
eleven inches, while the stride measured thirty inches; and this has 
happened under circumstances which left no doubt in their minds of their 
being but a few hours old. Erelong it may be hoped that we shall hear 
of the restoration of one of the marvellous and romantic links which 
connect us with an elder world. 
But while we may feel surprise that such vast creatures, treading the same 
solid earth with ourselves, should have so long escaped us, we can feel no 
wonder that the boundlesss sea should yield from time to time new marvels 
stranger than those we are yet acquainted with. As Spenser exclaims, in 
the “Faery Queene,” 
“ So fertile be the floods in generation ! ” 
while a common proverb tersely expresses the same fact, which says that 
“ there are stranger fish in the sea than ever came out of it.” The great sea- 
serpent is still a vexata qucestio ; and while so much can be said by naturalists 
on both sides, it must inevitably be held to remain sub judice. The most 
remarkable sea-monster which the “ unfathomed caves of ocean ” have 
