gdEher statistics of the sexes afford some curious results. The relative numbers of the sexes are the same in all parts of the world, namely, at birth, twenty-one males to twenty femalesg but as the mortality among males during infancy exceeds that of females, the sexes at the age of fifteen are nearly equall A late French writer, M. Giron, thinks himself warranted in the opinion, that agricultural pursuits favour an increase in the male, while commerce and manufactures encourage the female population. There exists throughout the world considerable variety in the proportion of births to marriages, but, upon an average, we may state it at about four to one. It has been uniformly found, however, that improvements in the public health are attended by a diminution of marriages and births. The great principle is this: as the number of men cannot exceed their means of subsistence, if men live longer, a less number is born, and the human race is maintained at its due complement with fewer deaths and fewer births, a contingency favourable in every respect to happiness. The authors illustrates this very important principle by the population returns both of England and France. it mort zieming Having pointed out the many varieties in the distribution of mortality, Dr. Hawkins concludes the volume by a brief notice of the circumstances which, in our own country, have rendered As ditution so conspicuous. They are, improvements in medical practice and in the construction and general economy of hospitals; the increase of commercial and agricultural industry improvements in our clothing and diet; but, above all, the spirit of English liberty. 30 the gertonujno riedi Is Wes may easily conceive the different constitution of body and of mind which is likely to grow upon the unemployed inhabitant of a decayed city, who gloomily wanders without an object through silent streets whose pavement is choked with grass; and upon the active citizen who feels himself a constituent member of a flourishing community, and who is attracted, on all sides by invitations to the exercise of his faculties It is indisputable, that the average proportion of deaths in England and her cities is less than that of any other country of Europe! And it may be added, that the powers of body and of mind are preserved to a late period in higher perfection here than in other countries: nowhere are the advances of age so slowly perceived, and nowhere so little mani fested off the exterior. An analogous condition of health and vigour may be also in our animals and in our vegetation; and it it should be replied, excellence is owing to the care bestowed on calting, the answer applies equally to the human being, on whom more attention is here bestowed, and who is really an object of greater value here than elsewhere. it ut she mwond It is delightful to find the author thus displaying at the same edt to 190edua edt to anoitosadua edt of 399jdo yleɔ1602 time his science and his patriotism, and so elegantly expressing those feelings of national pride which his statistical investi gations have fostered. We take our leave of him with the respect which is due to the scholar, the physician, and the gentleman; and would strongly encourage him to persevere in that field of study in which he has first broken ground, and which promises to yield him hereafter a rich harvest of honourable reputation. To the Editor of the QUARTERLY JOURNAL of Science. SIRS bonistiem -nia pursuing the Illustrations of Nature, bats and their allies follow in course the manupeda, or monkey types g Objections have been raised to the separation of these animals from the carnivoræ, as not worthy (from the unimportant part they are said to play in the general economy of nature) to be dignified as an independent section. What may be their comparative importance I shall not presume to determine; but, thus far I will fearlessly assert, that if their natural characters permitted their disjunction from the Linnæan Primates, those same characters should never have allowed their conjunction with the Predaceæ and Feræ. I would also with deference submit, that systems should succumb to natural characters; and natural groups never be forced or kept in unnatural associations; either from their confined number, (which our ignorance alone may limit,) or from any prejudice we may form of their value in the system of creation. Thus man, justly freed from his unnatural allies, the apes, the monkeys, and the bats, is now confessed the single species of a single genus, in the single order of his class and reign; and thus the Ornithorynchus was rightly disjoined from all other beasts, even when the solitary example of its type and order; thus also, bats might with advantage be considered a separate section, even were they in number less; but those already known are far from trifling. 9 Naturalists acquainted with the progress of zoology will scarcely object to the subsections of the subgenera of the former genus Vespertilio, being now esteemed as genera, and the larger groups as kinds; especially when they reflect that the signification of this term has ever been varying in extent, from its first use, when all beasts formed a single genus, all birds another, all fish a third, and so on. The steps were gradual by which it became limited; and one hundred and fifty such various species of the single genus Vespertilio would be now intolerable. Illiger, Geoffroy, the Cuviers, Leach, and others, have already, more or less, authorized these subdivisions; from their works, aided by the examination of specimens, the concluding tabular synopsis has been compiled. In the present essay I have fallen almost unconsciously into a longer criticism than was purposed of their earlier arrangement; this, however, will not be without its use, as it may tend to settle an historical point which appears in general to have been misunderstood, and frequently involved in unaccountable confusion; for the error even to this day prevails, as may be shewn by its repetition in a zoological work, published long since the materials of these papers have been ready for the press. May 3d, 1829. I have the honour to remain, GILBERT T. BURNETT. Illustrations of the Alipeda (Alipeds), or Bats and their allies ; being the arrangement of the Cheiroptera, Volitantia, or wing-footed Beasts, indicated in Outline. BATS and their natural allies, a well marked series of animals, though always notorious, were formerly so little understood, that a structure highly characteristic was deemed ambiguous; a curious error, which their nocturnal habits favoured, leading not only the vulgar but philosophers astray.. The Ataleph of the Hebrews, the Nycteris of the Greeks, and the Vespertilio of the Latins, would appear for ages to have ranked as birds: and thus together we find associated "the ostrich and the bat" [Jonstonius de Avibus]; "the crow, the bat, and the lark," [Geof. Linocier, Hist. des Oiseaux]; "the sparrow, the partridge, and the quail, the starling the ostrich and the bat," [Arch. Simson]. Aristotle and Pliny are generally stated thus to have be lieved and taught; but their authority, as well as that of the Pentateuch, has been cited in this matter, on very insufficient grounds. It is true that, as fowls, we find enumerated "the heron, the lapwing, and the bat," [Levit. xi. 19.]; but the locust and the beetle are likewise named; and the Stagirite especially quotes as his examples the "hawk, the bee, the beetle, and the bat," [Zwwv isopía, A. I. 5]; indeed he avoids the word opvis, expressly using vά; as Pliny in like manner wrote volucris, expressly avoiding avis. This uniform tenor in their works demonstrates that the zoological distributions of the ancients were much more extended in their signification than similar terms are accepted in modern times; their fowls, τvà, volucres, probably included all animals that fly, of which birds were but a section; as quadrupeds, τelpáπoda, all that possessed four legs; amongst which are found the tortoise, the crocodile, and the frog, examples immediately in point. That error, which unjustly was attributed to the ancients, the naturalists of the middle ages themselves incurred; for, without such qualifying circumstances, Charleton arranges, in one section of his birds, "the estridge, the emeu, and the bat;" in the Ornithologia of Conrad Gesner, we find assembled, "turdus, vespertilio, et ulula :" Belon enumerates, as birds of prey, “l'aigle, le busard, le faucon, l'hibou, et la sourichauve;" and Merret places together as allies, "the eagle, the hawk, the falcon, the chough, the crow, the bat," and others. Albertus Magnus and Franzius associate the "owl and the bat;" Jonston and Konig both call them carnivorous birds, and class in one family the "ostrich and the bat" [aves carnivoræ mediæ naturæ]; and of the genus vespertilio, the former gives two species, v. lactans and v. pullus [Theatr. Univ. de Avibus]. Again, Aldrovandus, after having stated that some skilful naturalists had doubted whether bats were quadrupeds or birds, continues thus: "Volucris mihi potiùs quàm quadrupes existimandus vespertilio videtur;" and further, "Nos tamen cum ornithologi et Bellonii exemplo, tum rationibus magis permoti inter, aves, et quidem nocturnas ponendum existimavimus" [Ulyss. Aldrov., Ornithologia].; thus 1 deeming them not merely flying animals, but birds as did Wolfgang. Franzius, also, who having discussed the question, "utrum sit avis an vero mus," concludes the argument in these words: Vincit tamen illorum sententia, qui referunt inter aves" [P. ii. c. 23, De Noctuâ et Vespertilione]. nibacte Some doubts, however, as to the true nature of the bat, seem often to have occurred; for we find Plato enigmatically referring to it as a bird that is not called a bird; and Aristotle himself, although in one place he allies ahwan nai suxlepish! in another, when jealously scanning its structure [2. iv, 13], he observes [14], τον αὐτον δὲ τρόπον καὶ ὁ στρουθός ὁ Λιβυκός τα μέρ μεν γαρο ορνιθος ἔχει τα δε ζώον τετράποδος. Macrobius, in like manner, describes it as an animal of an uncertain kind and Aldrovandus, though he decides it to be a bird, enro titles the chapter in which he treats of the ostrich and the bat, "De avibus mediæ naturæ:" by some it has been "placed in the middle betwixt two kinds, as having something of birds and beasts," and thus Nonius defines it, "inter avem et murem species while Victorinus called it "avis sorex, and Valla "semi-mus. 100 de a edo bas slqm8x9 ¿ nay, evén foil the bat is ab Historieɔ Still the current doctrine of the middle ages, the end of the seventeenth century, was, that small bird," and thus Topsell excluded it from his of Beastes" while ornithologists classed it among the birds," "avis impura," "avis foeda, vultu humano."And sa fotoɔ2 The progress of this error it would be futile to trace further; its extension is well marked by Holland's unintended pervers" sion of the text of Pliny: the sixty-first chapter of the tenths book he thus prefaces, and quaintly enough translates, What bird alone bringeth forth a living creature and feedeth it with? milk, "The reremouse, or bat, alone, of all creatures that fly r [volucrum], bringeth forth her young alive; and noné but shesi of that kind hath wings made of pannicles, or thin skins); vshéot is the only bird [volucris] that suckleth her little ones with her paps, and giveth them milk.".. sea sldsuoijdo Wotton, so early as the reign of our sixth Edwardi [552]yd truly described, and correctly arranged these animals, posi tively asserting, in spite of the prejudice that the baristad small bird," "Quadrupes est vespertilio," the bat is a quadam rupede Cauda tam quadrupes quam volucris caret, nolate |