6i8 
Analyses of Books. [October, 
poisonous Siberian toadstool {Amanita muscaria) have been im- 
ported into England in one year. Such a quantity can scarcely 
have been consumed in medicine or in chemical research, and 
we therefore fear that it is employed among us as an intoxicant. 
The article on “ Nuts ” will be found very suggestive by all 
who are interested — and what far-seeing man is not ? — in the 
growth of our colonial resources. It is stated that in India the 
coco-nut trees are often damaged -by a Curculio {Calandra Ber- 
quetii or palmarum P) which the writer terms an “ elephant- 
beetle ” — a misleading name. This pest “ reappears at intervals 
of two, three, or more years/’ These periods ought to be more 
closely observed. 
The chapter on “ Oils,” including as it does the saponifiable, 
the essential, and the mineral oils, is the most extensive and 
elaborate in the whole volume. We have often been struck with 
the feasibility of introducing palm oil into this country in such 
a state as to supersede “ butterine ” and its kindred mixtures. 
All that is necessary, we believe, is to add to the oil a trace of 
salicylic acid to prevent rancidity. Non-rancid palm oil is ex- 
ceedingly pleasant in flavour, and would possess the advantage 
of entire freedom from the ova of Entozoa, and other abomina- 
tions which have often been traced in butterine. 
We are thoroughly satisfied of the value of “Spon’s Encyclo- 
paedia” for merchants, manufacturers, &c., who will here be able 
to lay their fingers upon information which they might otherwise 
seek for in vain. 
Monthly Notices of Papers , avid Proceedings and Report of the 
Royal Society of Tasmania for 1879. 
The Tasmanian Society has been doing no small amount of 
useful work. 
A. B. Crowther, M.R.C.S., communicates a paper on some 
points of interest connected with the Platypus. Every point in 
the reproduction of this animal, except the aCtual birth of the 
young, has now been elucidated, and the supposition of its ovi- 
parous character is now completely abandoned. A curious feature 
is that the mammary glands of the female appear and disappear 
with great rapidity. Two or three months before the birth of 
the young not even a rudiment of the gland can be discovered, 
and it as completely disappears when no longer needed. The 
poisonous character of the secretion ejeCted through the hollow 
spurs on the right legs of the males is fully proved. It is em- 
ployed by them when fighting for the possession of the female. 
About the breeding-season specimens are often caught with 
