Bibliographical Notices. 419 are cultivated, but on the other hand there is a very rich collection of Cacti and succulent plants, especially from the West Indies, Mexico and South America. The botanical museum is in the garden, and the lower part of this contains a spacious, very elegant theatre for the lectures on botany and agriculture ; in the upper story are the botanical library with the herbaria, as well as a room for a col-lection of models and instruments of husbandry, woods and the like, which is yet but insignificant, but for the enlargement of which the present Professor of Agriculture, D. Pascual Asensio, labours with great zeal. The richly bound botanical library contains but few new works ; however, the herbaria of Cavanilles, Ruiz, Pavon and others are here, the first of which I studied particularly. From deficiency of funds, the Madrid garden is in correspondence with no foreign gardens except those of Paris and Montpellier. During my sojourn in Madrid, 1 made a day and a half's excursion to the famous Escu-rial, situated at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama, less for the sake of botanizing than to see this palace so remarkable in historical associations. From this excursion however to the richly watered, in part well-wooded, granitic Sierra, next to the Sierra Nevada and the Pyrenees the highest mountain of Spain, some parts being at that time covered with snow, I am persuaded that it would well re-pay a longer sojourn. In a single half-hour's excursion which I made in the immediate vicinity of the Escurial, I found many inter-esting plants, of which I may mention Ranunculus Carpetanus, Rent., Dianthus laricifolius, Rent., Sedum gypsicolum, R., and Jasione ses-silijlora, R. On the 6th of July I left Madrid and betook myself to Aranjuez, from whence I think of setting out this evening towards Granada. Well would it recompense a longer stay, since both the very luxu-riant vegetation of the neighbouring shores of the Tagus and the sur-rounding gypsum hills promise a rich harvest. Aranjuez is parti-cularly remarkable for its woods. Giant planes, innumerable elms, limes, beeches, oaks and other dicotyledonous trees, clothe for leagues the shores of the stream, on which occur, among other plants, Hel-minthia echioides and Chlora perfoliata, L. Kentrophyllum lanatum^ DeC, Picnomon Acarna, DeC, Centaurea Calcitrapa, L., Carlina co-rymhosa, L., are extremely frequent, in company with Heliotr opium europceum, L., and Trihulus terrestris, L., on waste places, while the neighbouring gypsum hills are clothed with Frankenia pulverulenta, Mill., Machrochloa tenacissima, Kth., many Resedacea and Labiates . BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. Contributions towards a Fauna and Flora of the County of Cork. London, 1845. 8vo. The appearance of the first local fauna and flora of a part of Ireland gives us great satisfaction, since we trust that it will soon be fol-lowed by similar accounts of other parts of the island, and that thus
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