Bibliographical Notice.xvi. t. iii.; and a more perfect skeleton is figured in a largersize in the ' Ost�ographie des C�tac�s,' t. xxi. f. 1-3, t. xxii.f. 1, 2, t. xxvi. This skeleton is very interesting as being only the secondspecies of the family of which any other part of the animal butthe skull has been observed. The form of the lower jaw gives a very peculiar appearanceto the skeleton. The cervical vertebroe are united togetherby their bodies and large dorsal processes, the latter forming athick conical process. The bodies of the dorsal vertebre arevery small, enlarging in size towards the tail; they are thirty-six in number. The four terminal caudal ones are very small,forming a kind ofcylindrical process. There are eight chevronbones. The thoracic cavity is small. There are twelve ribson each side. The dorsal processes of the first eighteen ver-tebroe have an anterior basal process, which becomes graduallysmaller. Dr. Krefft, who has sent me a more detailed photograph of the lower jaw, has not, unfortunately, sent one of the limbs. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. An Elementary Course of Botany, Structural, Physiological, and Systematic. By Professor AETHTR HEENFREY. Second Edition. Revised, and in part re-written, by MAXWELL T. MASTERS, M.D., F.R.S., &c. London: Van Voorst, 1870. Small 8vo, pp. xvi & 708. Illustrated by upwards of 500 woodcuts. THERE are two points of view from which a work like the present may be regarded, either as a mere introduction to students to enable them to meet the requisitions of an ordinary examination, or as a work for higher students and a repertory of facts to which more accomplished botanists may refer occasionally to refresh or confirm the memory. Unless authors of introductions (of which it would be difficult to state the number, which is legion) bear this in mind, the general result wil be sure to be a failure-a consummation which the present editor of a favourite treatise has certainly most successfully avoided. Examinera long felt that there was some great defect either in elementary treatises or in the mode of teaching botany, so far as they could judge from the answers which they elicited from students, even to the simplest questions. An utter want of accuracy, or any sufficient notion of what was before them, and, much more, any interest in the subject, seemed to show too evidently that there must be somewhere a grievous defect. The late Professor Henslow clearlyindicatedone greatfaultin elementary treatises,that physiology made too prominent a part in teaching, insomuch that the memory was loaded with a quantity of abstract notions, while the reasoning powers were utterly perplexed by contending views, none of which344
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