Natural History. — Zoology. 697 
and long wished for event. The Order Fungi has been con- 
tinued down to the present time with few alterations, ex- 
cept by the Germans, who, although sometimes unsuccessful 
in their systematic arrangements, have contributed beyond ah 
others to our knowledge of the structure and affinity of 
these intricate plants. Since the publication of the Synopsis 
fungorum of Persoon in 1801, Link has formed them into 
several new Natural Orders, and given us the best sketch of a 
systematic arrangement drawn from natural affinity ; the sys- 
tem also lately composed by Nees von Esenbeck, possesses 
great merit ; but they are both perplexed by too much subtlety 
and far-fetched analogy. Two volumes of a new system have 
likewise recently appeared from the pen of M. Elias Fries, 
which is indubitably the best work hitherto published on the 
subject, as far as the generic and specific distinctions and de- 
scriptions extend; but the physiological remarks, the general 
arrangement, and many of the subordinate features of his plan, 
as detailed in the introduction, are abstruse in the highest de- 
gree, and, we must confess, little calculated to render the study 
more popular. It is the chief object of Mr Greville to 
render the study of this family as simple and intelligible as 
possible, and with this view the most accurate dissections ac- 
company each species, and English as well as Latin characters 
are employed. He has also divided the fungi into several Natu- 
ral Orders, viz. Eusidoide^, Grev. — Byssoide^, Grev. — Gas- 
TROMYCi, ZmL — Fungi and Hypoxyla, He Cand ; charac- 
ters of which will be given at the conclusion of the first volume, 
so that the lichens will now, according to Mr Greville’s system, 
be the sixth Natural Order 
ZOOLOGY. 
Dr Fleming's Zoology. — We have long regretted the 
want of a scientific, and at same time popular view of the lead- 
ing facts in zoology. On the continent, it is true, there are 
many works of this description, but hitherto all those published 
in England have afforded but a limited and often incorrect view 
of general zoology. It is, therefore, with much pleasure and 
• We shall, in an early number, give a sketch of the history of Mycology, 
and of the various physiological and other relations of this very interesting class of 
plants. — E d. 
