Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/13

Rh of a work on Nudibranchiate Mollusca, which is highly creditable to the authors, Messrs. Alder and Hancock; also a translation of ofof [sic] Steenstrup's clever, but somewhat hypothetical essay on the "Alternation of Generations." The other publications are valueless. A thick volume called "Reports on the progress of Zoology and Botany" is worse than valueless: it contains a variety of strictures on British Naturalists, written in the most objectionable spirit, and many of them totally unsupported by fact. A writer in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' says that these strictures were supplied from England, and, indeed they bear much internal evidence of this. If it be so, the transaction is alike discreditable to the writer, to Erichson who suffers his name to be printed as the author, and to the Ray Society, which gives such statements to the world.

The British Association met as usual; the only paper that appears of much zoological interest, was by Mr Blackwall, on the migratory birds in his own neighbourhood, and I regret to record, that this was objected to, as useless; there was also an anatomical paper by Professor Owen on the skull; a paper by Professor Allman on Cristatella mucedo; and several others on Mollusca and Radiata. Except, inasmuch, as this association affords the opportunity for social intercourse among men of science, and may thus give additional zest to the respective studies, I feel quite at a loss to imagine its utility. Whether science is served by their gastronomical doings seems problematical.

In Quadrupeds, a most remarkable discovery has lately been made in Ireland, by Messrs. Glennon and Nolan, of Dublin, the former of whom has kindly forwarded to me a MS. account of the particulars, and the latter has most obligingly communicated them by word of mouth, and allowed me to make a careful examination of the specimens. The facts are briefly these: the above-named gentlemen have discovered at Lough Gûr, a small lake, situated near Limerick, a vast quantity of bones, which ap-