Zoological Society. 213 alternate month, which, together with an 8vo volume of letter-press, will form a complete illustration of the Mammalia of Nipal." Mr. James Hamilton Fennell, author of a very entertaining and instructive History of Quadrupeds, is preparing to publish by sub-scription a volume on " Shakespeare's Knowledge of the Works and Phenomena of Nature." From among the authorities given in the Prospectus in favour of such a work, we select the following : — " All the images of nature were ever present to Shakespeare, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily." — Dry den. " Whatever object of nature, or branch of science, he either speaks of or describes, it is always with competent, if not extensive knowledge ; his descriptions are still exact ; all his metaphors ap-propriate, and remarkably drawn from the true nature and inherent qualities of each subject." — Pope, in the Preface to his edition of Shakespeare's Works, 1725 and 1728. *■* Mr. Fennell's subject is a delightful one, and when finished in the manner that portion of it is treated which I have seen, cannot fail to make a very popular volume. It is an appendix to the text which many readers of Shakespeare must have felt the want of." — William Yarrell, Esq. in a Letter to a Friend, dated Jan. 29, 1838. PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. February 22, 1842.— William Horton Lloyd, Esq., in the Chair. The reading of the Second Part* of Prof. Owen's Monograph on the Apteryx australis, Shaw, including its Myology, was completed. The following is the descriptive portion of this communication : — Muscles of the Skin. No detailed description of the muscles of the skin in Birds has been given either in the systematic works on comparative anatomy, or in particular treatises ; these muscles appear indeed in general to be too irregularly or too feebly developed to have attracted much attention ; brief notices are recorded of some peculiarly developed cutaneous muscles, as those which spread the plumes of the peacock, and erect the hackles of the cock ; the compressors of the subcuta-neous air-cells are noticed in the anatomical account of the Gannett (Sula Bassanaf), and a more constant cutaneous muscle, viz. that which supports the crop in gallinaceous birds, is briefly mentioned and figured by Hunter J. In the Apteryx, the subject of the present Myography, the cuta-neous system of muscles presents a more distinct and extensive * See Transactions of the Zoological Society, vol. ii. part 4. p. 257, Splanchnology and Osteology. t Proceedings of Zoological Society, 1832, p. 91. X In description of pi. 10, vol. i. of Physiological Catalogue of Hunterian Collection, by Owen, 4to. 1833-1841.
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