4 
REPORT ON ZOOLOGY, MDCCCXLII : 
striving’ with more and more energy to obtain an equal influence 
with those languages, which have hitherto held universal sway, 
both in the ordinary intercourse of life and in the scientific 
world; and although these national attempts in themselves 
may not invite us to much exertion in mastering them, yet, on 
the other hand, it is not to he denied, that they produce such 
important scientific labours, that he who would give a view of 
what has been done in Zoology could not omit noticing them, 
without leaving many gaps and errors in his sketch. 
No one has sulfered more from this difficulty than Lesson 
did, last year, in his “ Nouveau Tableau du Regne Animal; 
MammiferesA Paris, 1842, 8vo. This Tableau was designed 
to be a Catalogue of all the hitherto published species of 
Mammalia, and a similar one was promised on the Birds, 
Reptiles, Mollusca, and Zoophytes, the materials for which 
had been already collected. The former might have been 
looked upon as tolerably complete, if therological literature 
had been exhausted in French and English works ; but as, 
besides these, there also exists a German, Dutch, Swedish, 
Danish, and American literature in Zoology, — the omission of 
so extensive a field, in the Tableau of Lesson, forms one 
of the principal obstacles to its completeness. The continu- 
ation of Schreber’s Natural History of the Mammalia, since 
1834 ; the treatises of Dutch zoologists on the Mammalia of 
the Indian Archipelago ; whatever has been done for this class 
in Wiegmann’s Archives, and by Nilsson, Brandt, and others, 
have all been entirely overlooked in this Tableau as if they 
had no existence. To these serious faults many others are to 
be added. First, there are great critical defects, and true 
and doubtful species, without selection, are arranged together 
in progressive numbers. Moreover, wherever Lesson has de- 
parted from the systematic arrangement of Cuvier, he gropes 
about in the dark. For example, he places in one family, 
Aseomys with Cricetus, Gerbillus with Dipus, Hydromys 
with Castor, Hapalotis with Eriomys, &c., evidently showing, 
that he is ignorant of their anatomical relations. Finally, 
we could not bring into use his new nomenclature of families, 
and partly of genera, without blushing for such a tyro in the 
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