IN EUROPE — BRITAIN. 
tlieir manners and habits, from the egg to matmaty, and that 
too, from a country whence hardly 150 species were before 
imperfectly known. Besides those anomalous animals from 
Australia, which are already celebrated, you will be interested 
in seeing others added, of which we had before no notion. I 
will here limit myself to mention two only, the first of which 
is the Talegalla lathami, till now a subject of dispute, as to 
whether it was a gallinaceous bird or a vulture. These birds 
have the habit of uniting together in communities, and of col- 
lecting, by the aid of their feet alone, vast mounds of vegetable 
matter, disposed to fermentation, and prepared for the recep- 
tion of their eggs, which in due time they bury at intervals of 
a foot, and with the point downwards. Another new bird, 
called by Gould, Leipoa ocellata, makes mounds of sand for 
the same purpose. There are also two species of Passerine 
Birds {Clilamydera, Gould), which form, with marvellous 
skill, a gallery, I might rather call it a covered terrace, for the 
purpose of walking there and playing with the females, which 
terrace one species decorates with shells, the other with feathers 
of various colours. Nor has Gould confined himself to Birds, 
for while making observations and collections in all the classes, 
he has especially attended to the Marsupial animals, of which 
he has published an entire series, admirably figured. By the 
help of these figures, and the never sufficiently praised re- 
searches of the celebrated anatomist Owen, this sub-class of 
animals, hardly known a few years since, will be illustrated in 
a manner adequate to the singularity of its characters. 
The whole class of Mammalia is more effectually studied in 
England than elsewhere, not so much because the museums of 
that country are the richest in those animals, as from the fact, 
that those zealous naturalists readily undertake long and ex- 
pensive journeys, for the sole purpose of verifying the objects 
of their studies in the museums of all other nations, and of 
cancelling or adopting the species which have been proposed or 
suspected, thus rendering more perfect the critical department 
of science ; while, on the other hand, allow me to remark, that 
continental naturalists, although worse supplied with specimens, 
rarely or never visit London with this object. In reference to 
