lower uncertain, from the imperfection of the specimen; teeth pointed, compressed, triangular, and disposed in two circular ranges, the exterior of which is composed of twentytwo, and the interior of fourteen teeth; a single tooth, longer than the rest, and of a curved form, in the roof of the mouth, as in the European species: eyes and nostrils imperceptible: tail rounded at the extremity, and terminated by a very shallow fin united with the anal."

The new generic name well expresses the peculiar situation of the spiracles, but we question whether any advantage is gained by it, equivalent to the confusion unavoidably occasioned by a change of the ancient appellation. A gainst the new trivial name we must strongly protest. When the species stood alone, none was necessary. When a genus has only a single species, that species is sufficiently designated by the generic name, with the peculiar advantage of conciseness. In the present case the appellation cacus is descriptive, but it does not discriminate, and if it had not been already given, it certainly would not now be adopted. The same objection may possibly lie against the Linnæan glatinosa, but the impropriety has not yet been proved.

The grotesque genus raja, subdivided by Linnæus according to its teeth, as they are either sharp or blunt, is thrown by our author into four sections, founded on the general form of the several speries, as they are either rhomboid, slender tailed, rounded, or lengthened. Its striking peculiarities are well described.

"This genus is distinguished by the remarkable breadth and thinness of the body, the pectoral fins appearing like a continuation of the sides themselves, being covered with the common skin; their rays are cartilaginous, straight, and furnished with numerous swellings, or knots; the teeth are very numerous, small, and placed in ranges over the lips or edges of the mouth; the eyes are furmished with a nictitating membrane, or skin, which can at pleasure be drawn over them like an eyelid, and at some distance above the eyes are situated the nostrils, each appearing like a large and somewhat semilunar opening, edged with a reticulated skin, and furnished internally with a great many laminated processes, divided by a middle partition; they are guarded by an exterior valve: behind the eyes are also a pair of holes, communicating with the mouth and gills; these latter, taken together, present a vast extent of surface: the young are contained in oblong square capsules, with lengthened corners, and are discharged at distant intervals, the young

animal gradually liberating itself from its confinement, and adhering for some time by the umbilical vessels. The rays in general feed on the smaller kind of crabs, testacea, marine insects and fishes; they are constant inhabitants of the sea, lying concealed during part of the winter among the mud or sand, from which they occasionally emerge, and swim to unlimited distances."

In the genus squalus Dr. Shaw has not adopted the division of the sawfish, the pristis of Linnæus and the ancients, into four distinct species, as suggested by Mr. Latham; and though he men tions the paper of that gentleman in the Linnæan Transactions, he has taken no notice of his proposal to separate them from the squali, and form them into a distinct genus, augmented by the cirratus, a new species from New Holland. He thinks, however, as Klein had done before him, that the long snouted sharks are considerably allied to the long bodied rays, and may be said in some degree to connect the two genera. In conformity with this idea, they should have been placed immediately after raja, at the head, and not at the end, of their own genus. In the account of the Beaumaris shark a supposed error of Mr. Pennant is corrected." In the British Zoology," says Dr. Shaw," the upper lobe of the tail is said to be ten, and the lower thirteen, inches long; but it is clear from the plate, engraved from Mr. Davies's drawing, that this is an error." We know not how the calculation has been made out, but the error is certainly not Mr. Pennant's, who says clearly that the upper horn, or lobe, of the tail in Mr. Davies's specimen was one foot ten inches, and the lower one foot one, sufficiently corresponding with the representation in the figure.

The new genus spatulana, polyodon of Cepede, is allied to the sharks, especially those of the sawfish tribe, but is decisively distinguished from them by having a single spiracle on each side of the neck, with a large operculum or The generic name is taken from cover, its long spatule-shaped snout. given it by Cepede would have done equally well for squalus. It consists of one species, of which the particular history, and even the usual residence, are unknown. which

That

Cepede has also a new genus, he calls aodon, containing three species, two observed in the Red Sea by Forskal, and the other described by Brunich. In

The new genus cephalus has been instituted by Dr. Shaw, at the expence of the genera tetrodon and diodon, for those species in which the body terminates so abruptly as to resemble only the head of a fish. He formed it to avoid the confusion occasioned by a mistake of Linnæus concerning the true genus of the short sunfish, his tetrodon mola, which, according to his own principles of arrangement, ought to have been a diodon. It would have been easy to change its place; but another species of diodon has been introduced by Gmelin, with the same trivial name; "so that the restoring the short sunfish, even under a different title, would but have increased the confusion." We cannot think a difficulty of this kind a sufficient reason for the appointment of a new ge

But in the present case à much better might have been alleged. All the four species differ so essentially from diodon and tetrodon in the union of the dorsal, caudal, and anal fins, in the truncated form of their bodies, and their inability to inflate themselves at pleasure, that there can be no doubt of their right to constitute a separate genus. Cepede has suffered the short sunfish to retain its original place in the genus tetrodon, and, as usual with the French naturalists, has attributed the diodon mola of Gmelin to Linnæus.

To the genus syngnathus a very singular species is added, of which the following account is given.

"Foliated Pipe-fish. "Syngnathus foliatus. S, olivacea-nigricans, albido-punctatus, appendicibus foliaceis. "Blackish-olive pipefish, with white specks,

and leaf-shaped appendages.

"A most extraordinary species, far exceed ing all the rest of the genus in the singularity of its appearance, which is such as at first view rather to suggest the idea of some pro duction of fancy than of any real existence, In its general shape it is greatly allied to the sea-horse pipe-fish, but is considerably longer in proportion, or of a more slender habit: its greatest particularity however consists in the large leaf-shaped appendages, with which the back, tail, and abdomen are fur

nished; these appendages are situated on very strong, rough, square spines or processes, and, were it not for the perfect regularity of their respective proportions, might be misadhering to the spines. The colour of the taken for the leaves of some kind of fucus whole animal is a dusky or blackish olive, ly sprinkled on all parts, except on the appen(perhaps greener in the living subject), thick. dages, with small round whitish specks, and accompanied by a kind of metallic gloss on the abdomen: the fins are soft, tender, and transparent. This curious species is a native which the description was drawn, and of of the Indian seas. The specimen from which a representation is given in the work,

was taken on the coast of New Holland. Nothing particular is known relative to its habits, or natural history."

Most of the other genera are consider. ably enlarged by the accession of new species from Bloch, Cepede, and others, which are described in our author's usual perspicuous and elegant manner: but they do not afford matter for animadver sion, and it would be useless to give a mere catalogue of their names. We therefore take leave of Dr. Shaw for the present year, sincerely wishing him health and spirits to go through the remainder of the work. We observe with pleasure that as he proceeds, he not only feels more the strength of his own powers, but has almost entirely avoided the little inaccuracies of style which we occasionally remarked in the former volumes. But we are fearful that his general readers will think this part of it contains more of science than of entertainment. This was in a great degree unavoidable from the nature of the subject. Ichthy ology, in most cases, admits only of dry description: for nothing more is known. We wait with impatience for the time when we shall have the gratification t accompany him into the fertile field of entomology, where wonders abound on every side, which cannot fail to fix the attention of the curious, which will li ligent inquirer, and which can never be berally repay the labours of the most di of the most skilful naturalist. The aniexhausted by the unwearied researches mals, indeed, are minute, and cannot without the aid of magnifying powers i always be accurately described or seen but many of them are completely within our reach, and give us a full opportunity of observing their general economy, and of tracing their progress through the various stages of their being.

ART. 11. History of British Birds. The Figures engraved on Wood, by P. BEWICK. In Two Volumes. 8vo.

THE publication of the general history of quadrupeds in the year 1790, with figures engraved on wood by Mr. Bewick, forms a new æra in the history of the elegant arts. This kind of engraving was nearly coeval with that on copper; and, for some time after it was invented, was practised by several of the most eminent painters as an easy and expeditious method of multiplying copies of their works. Most of the earlier writers of natural history also employed similar figures of plants and animals. Some of these did honour to the artist: but the greatest part of them were rude and in expressive, and could boast of no kind of merit. The superior beauty and splendour of copper-plate engravings gradually obtained a decided preference, and, during the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, wooden cuts were of little use but to embellish halfpenny ballads and school-books for little children.

It was reserved for Mr. Bewick to revive and restore to its original dignity, a nearly forgotten art. Educated for the profession of an engraver, but endowed with a painter's eye, he could not confine his attention to the mechanical operations of his regular business; and though placed by the accident of birth in a provincial town, at a great distance from the capital and from extensive patronage, his native genius burst through every impediment and pointed out to him the way to celebrity and honour. His particular turn of mind led him to observe and to delineate the form and manners of the animal creation; and he soon found that the yielding consistence of wood is better fitted to express the ease, freedom, and spirit which ought to characterize portraits of animated beings than the stubborn surface of a metallic substance. He accordingly engraved wooden blocks of all the domestic and most of the wild British quadrupeds, and neglected no opportunity of drawing such foreign animals as were exhibited in the itinerant collections which visited Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These universally shew the hand of a master. There is in them a boldness of design, a correctness of outline, an exactness of attitude, and a discrimination of generd character, conveying at the

first glance a just and lively idea of each different animal, to which nothing in modern times has ever aspired, and which the most eminent old artists have not surpassed. But Mr. Bewick's merits as an artist extend far beyond the simple delineation of the animal. The landscapes which he sometimes introduces as a back ground and relief to his principal figures, as well as the greater part of his numerous vignettes, have a similar excellence; and though the parts of which they consist are extremely minute, there is in them a truth and nature which admits of the strictest examination, and will be admired in proportion as they are more attentively observed and better understood. Many of them are adapted to the work, and exhibit several of our domestic animals in various situations and modes of action.

Mr. Bewick had no just reason to be apprehensive for his reputation as an artist; but he distrusted his talents as a writer. He therefore applied to a friend, brought up like himself to one of the more elegant manual arts, and possessing a taste congenial with his own. The descriptions which it was desirable, if not absolutely necessary, should accompany the figures, were drawn up by Mr. Beilby, chiefly from the works of Buffon and Pennant, but with the addition of so much original matter as clearly demonstrates, that the author has been accustomed to survey the objects around him with the ardour and penetration of a real naturalist. Urged to the study of nature by the impulse of native genius, he has readily seized those prominent features which group the distinct species of quadrupeds into large families, without tying himself down to any of the methods prescribed by systematic writers; and has produced, beyond all comparison, the best book which has hitherto been published in the English language for the use of young persons of both sexes in an early period of their education.

The work, when completed, was published at the joint risk of the engraver, the writer and the printer. And its success was such as from its various merits might well be expected. A second cdition with improvements soon appeared, and a third was afterwards demanded. The authors, having thus abundant rea