38 
STATE OF ZOOLOGY 
and in a valuable work of the geological Professor Catullo, is 
a good list of the Vertebrata of that province. 
Crossing the Adriatic, we see even the semi-barbarous Mol- 
davia, establishing, under the patronage of her enlightened 
Hospodar, a natural history society, already rich in facts and 
specimens. Nor is this wonderful, in an age when the Tartar 
Emperor of China was enrolled in the register of the Academy 
of Brussels. 
Athens, and the Ionian Islands, also nobly strive to cul- 
tivate the natural sciences in those countries. Malta has 
seen the publication of a good Catalogue of the Fish which 
live around her coasts ; and that of the Birds, enriched with 
notes on their manners, is in preparation by Signor Antonio 
Schembri. 
Sicily, more devoted to these sciences than the continental 
parts of the kingdom, beholds, on all sides, the growth of new 
societies, new journals, and new museums. You all know, 
gentlemen, the name and the activity of the Accademia 
Gioenia of Catania. Messina is distinguished among the 
Sicilian cities by Luigi Benoit and Anastasio Cocco. The latter 
continues to throw light, in every way, on the Fish of his own 
country, as is fully shown by his articles in periodical works, 
to which I may add the epistolary correspondence with which 
he obligingly honours me. Benoit has published the Orni- 
tologia Siciliana^ a truly useful little work, especially in 
Sicily, although it does not equal the expectations of those 
who looked for an original work on the Habits of Birds, 
rather than a repetition of other authors, who were frequently 
defective in points where it behoved him to have set them 
right. 
Naples being the city in which the somewhat limited zoo- 
logical science of the continental part of the kingdom seems to 
be concentrated, has lately beheld the formation of a society 
of young cultivators of natural science, which has already 
produced several useful works, and given promise of more. 
Dr. Oronzio Costa, its founder, Avho has undertaken a journey 
to France and Britain, has given us some new numbers of his 
Fauna del Regno di Napoli, so conveniently diAuded into 
38 
