28 
STATE OF ZOOLOGY 
Pouchet, would have come among us three years since, had 
not a defect in his hearing induced him rather to await at liis 
abode for the volumes of our Transactions. Caen has to boast 
of Professor Desjardins, of Brebisson, and of M. Caumont, 
the founder of Scientific Congresses in France. In Falaise 
resides the most practised ornithologist of France, the Baron 
de Lafresnaye, worthily connected with the family of Bufibn. 
His classification, founded chiefly on the Habits of Birds, is 
the work which most particularly distinguishes him. 
After the death of Cuvier, the sceptre of Zoology, which 
was disputed with him by Geolfroy St. Hilaire, passed into the 
hands of that family, which, in right of succession, is likely 
long to retain it. Paris will be indebted to the young Geoffroy 
for improved arrangements in her museums, which, in the 
ornithological branch especially, by no means equalled the 
expectation of excellence, which, in so great a metropolis, we 
were justified in entertaining. This eminent naturalist, far 
from being wearied with so many laborious and useful under- 
takings, is now preparing a work which will serve as a con- 
tinuation to the great iconographic publication of his father 
and Frederic Cuvier, holding out to us also the prospect, at 
some future time, of a general Species of Mammifers. 
I want words to praise, in adequate terms, the learned and 
magnificent work of M. Ducrotay de Blainville, another suc- 
cessful rival to Cuvier, wliich is the result of forty years of 
unwearied study. In truth, I know not whether most to praise 
the excellence of the descriptive portion, or the erudition 
which accompanies the history of science in each department. 
May we be allowed, however, to wish for a more rigid deter- 
mination of species in this work ? May we venture to say, 
that in order to avoid too great a multiplicity of genera, he 
forms some which are wholly inadmissible? It cannot be 
denied, that he is unacquainted with many species, especially 
of Vesper tilionidce. I may also add, that he has not weighed 
with much diligence, the characters of several of the genera 
wliich he has liimself cancelled; such, for instance, as those 
Avhich he incorporates with his Subursus^ a word constructed 
to suit a theory, and certainly not an acceptable one. Among 
28 
