IN EUROPE — ITALY. 
35 
ITALY. 
Coming to our own Italy, rich in so many branches of learn- 
ing, that she need not be ashamed if in Zoology she is not 
equally advanced, we have chiefly to deplore the late irre- 
parable loss of M. Camillo Ranzani, the Bolognese professor, 
and one of the first zoologists of Europe, who, a few days be- 
fore his decease, wrote his last Memoir on the Fish of Brazil. 
There was no subject which he undertook Avhich he did not 
penetrate deeply on every side. Oh ! how much we have to 
regret, that he did not finish his Elementi di Zoologia, and 
especially the Erpetological and Malacological portions, of 
which subjects he had a perfect knowledge. Public opinion has 
already proclaimed, as his successor in the chair of Zoology, 
Professor Antonio Alessandrini, worthily called the Cuvier of 
Italy ; and this appointment would be the more appropriate, 
because it seems reasonable to unite the chairs of Comparative 
Anatomy and Zoology, just as these subjects are united in 
our present section ; whereas, there is little or no connection 
between Zoology and Mineralogy ; both which professorships 
were held together by the deceased naturalist whom I have 
above extolled. 
Signor Bissp, encouraged by the warm and merited recep- 
tion which he experienced at the Turin meeting, is devoting 
himself to fresh labours, with the additional experience which 
he has acquired, and is chiefly occupied with a monograph of 
the very intricate Lahridm of the Mediterranean. The mag- 
nificent ornithological collections of the Marchese Costa at 
Chambery, a city devoted to natural history, increase percep- 
tibly, as do those of the Marchese di Breme at Turin, and of 
Carlo Durazzo at Genoa ; who, while pursuing his researches 
on the Ornithology of his own country, has this year enriched 
Europe with two new species, the Podiceps longirostris of 
Sardinia, which is wholly new, and the Fulica cristata of 
Spain, Barbary, Sardinia, and Liguria itself, resembling (at 
least in appearance), the one figured by Buffbn as coming from 
35 
