cold, vegetates very early in the season, and is an excellent spring fodder. It's growth is as rapid as it is early, admitting of three, four, or even more cuttings in the course of the year.

If cut before the stems are too strong and high, it is more tender and savoury. It may be given to cattle either in its green or dried state. If the cutting be regulated by the daily want, the part of the field which is first cut will be again ready for the scythe, when the whole has been regularly dispatched. Its produce in bulk and weight, on the same quantity of surface, is much greater than that of clover, or even of lucerne. The cattle require no preparation for this species of food, which is as salutary as it is abundant, purifies their blood, and serves as a preventive, or even a cure, of certain distempers. When given to cows, it increases the quantity of their milk, without imparting to that fluid any of its native bitterness. Wild endive, in fhort, when cultivated on a large scale, supplies, during eight months of the year, an excellent green provender. It forms the first meadow in Spring, and the last in Autumn. What other plant combines all these advantages?'

A Dutch officer,' says M. Bose, assures us that in India, he cured more than a hundred persons who were ill with the stone, by the use of Spilanthus Acmella Lin.'-This assertion might be easily confirmed or confuted by experiment, as seeds of the plant may be obtained from some of our botanic gardens.

Many excellent observations on Wheat are given under the article Bié. The author prefers planting to sowing this valuable grain; assigning for reasons, 1st, that, by the employment of children, no additional expence is incurred, 2dly, that a very considerable quantity of seed is saved, and 3dly, that the produce is from 80 to 130 fold.

Flour, Sugar-cane, and Herbal, are truly valuable articles, but too long for either quotation or comment.

With regard to the animal department, we remark various degrees of merit in the several contributions. Sonnini, Olivier, and Latreille, seldom disappoint the high expectations with which we associate their names. The curious tribes of Zoophytes might have been more minutely delineated: but we have been much gratified with the articles Ass, Eagle, Lark, Insect, Caterpillar, Bee, and many others, too tedious to men

tion.

The succeeding extract will probably be acceptable to some of our entomological readers:

CEROPLAT, Ceroplatus, genus of insects of the dipterous order, instituted by Bosc, in the Transactions of the Society of Natural History at Paris, 1 Fasc. p. 42. tab. 7. fig. 3.

The ceroplats belong to my family of TIPULA, and may be distinguished by the following characters; antenna somewhat broad in the middle, with 14 articulations, the extremity reaching at least

half

half the length of the thorax; trunk very short; feelers of a single joint.

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These dipterous insects have the usual habits of the tipule. Their abdomen is spindle-shaped. They are very rare, and are found in the woods. Their larvæ inhabit boleti.

For some time, only one species was known: but the same individual who found and described it has observed a second in Carolina. The first, or Ceroplatus tipuloïdes, occurs in the environs of Paris. Its head is small, rounded, yellowish, with two little, yellow, horn-like projections under the antenna; the latter are thick and blackish; the thorax is protuberant, yellowish, and striped with black; the abdomen is compressed and yellow, with the edges of the rings black; the wings are white, with a dot near the middle of the nerve, and a blackish spot.

As the Ceroplatus tipuloides has been figured in the Transactions of the Parisian Society of Natural History, we here exhibit the second species of the genus, discovered in America by Bosc, and named by him the COALY, carbonarius ;-and that this article may be more interesting and complete, we shall give, in the text, the recent observations of this able naturalist. All our learned men know the extreme complaisance with which he communicates the result of his inquiries; and I unite the sentiments of my gratitude to theirs.

"In the Transactions of the Society of Natural History, I have fixed, under the designation, Keroplatus, a new genus of insects, nearly allied to the tipule, but which is, nevertheless, completely distinguished from them by the length, breadth, and especially by the flatness of the antennæ. At that time I considered the only species which formed it, as quite unknown to naturalists: but my memory had proved inaccurate; for Réaumur had engraved one of its antennæ, tom. 4. pl. 9. fig. 10., observing only that it belonged to a tipula, which lives on the agaric of the oak.

"The disappearance of these agarics, or rather boleti, from the neighbourhood of Paris, since the felling of the lofty trees, and the multiplication of botanists and entomologists, have greatly limited the opportunities of finding the larva of the keroplatus, which I have described and figured. Hence it has not been observed since the days of Réaumur; and the specimen of the perfect insect, which I possess, is the only one extant in the present numerous collections in the capital. It was brought from Villers-Cotterets, an antient forest, still little frequented by naturalists, but which well deserves to become an object in their excursions.

"COALY CEROPLAT, Ceroplatus carbonarius. Head of a black brown, having too small spots behind the antenna, and the feelers whitish; forehead armed with two tubercles; antennæ of a dark brown; the last four articulations white; thorax of a beautiful black, a little hairy, whitish under the wings; poisers of a beautiful black; abdomen of the same colour, with the edges of the rings ashcoloured, especially on the sides; wings transparent, spotted with brown on the edges, and having a larger and deeper spot towards the outer extremity; legs brown, with a whitish base.

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"The

"The larva of this insect is vermiform, white, glutinous, with the head black, rings distinctly defined, and legs mammiform. It 'ves on the under substance of a boletus, which is nearly related to the unicolor of Bulliard. This larva, which occurs in families sometimes sufficiently numerous, is found in the month of June; and when it has attained its full growth, toward the end of August, it measures about two and a half inches in length, and three lines in diameter. During their growth, especially towards the close of it, these creatures spin a common net, which hangs rather loose, is of a brilliant white, and affords them, when molested, a retreat among its threads, similar to that of the caterpillar of the spindle tree moth. Such is the delicate texture of this filmy workmanship, that it is almost im possible to seize it with the fingers, without crushing it. If exposed for a few minutes to the sun, or put for some time into a dry situation, it is destroyed. The larve accordingly, inhabit only those boleti which grow on trees, in moist and shady situations.

"At the period of their transformation, they spin a ball of a closer texture than the net, though loose enough to render the nymph visible. The perfect insect proceeds from this ball at the end of fifteen days. I fed many of these larva at home, but few have arrived at a state of maturity, owing, perhaps, to a want of sufficient moisture."

The history of the Swallow occupies nearly thirty pages. Among other curious particulars which compose it, we remark the subsequent :

On the 5th of September, at eleven o'clock in the morning," says Montbeillard, I confined in a cage a whole nestful of the common house Martin, consisting of the male and female parent, and three young, capable of flying. Having returned, in the course of four or five hours, to the room in which the cage was placed, I perceived that the old male bird was missing; and I did not discover it till after half an hour's search. It had fallen into a large water-pot, and was drowned. I remarked all the symptoms of apparent death, closed eyes, hanging wings, and a general stiffness of the body: but it occurred to me that I might revive it, as I had formerly restored drowned flies. I, therefore, put it under warm ashes at half past four o'clock, leaving only the opening of the bill and the nostrils uncovered. In this state, it was laid on its breast, and soon manifested the heavings of respiration, by breaking through the ashes which covered its back. I covered the openings with fresh ashes. At seven o'clock its breathing was more distinctly marked; and the bird, though still stretched on its belly, opened its eyes at intervals. At nine o'clock, I found it standing by its little heap of ashes. Next morning, it was full of life. Having placed it at an open win. dow, he continued, for some moments, to look to the right and left, and then flew off with a little twitter of joy.

M. Bosc seems inclined to discredit the existence of the Furio infernalis: but we cannot, on slight surmises, resist the joint testimony of Linné, Solander, and Pallas.

The

The article Man, though diffuse, is instructive and entertaining but the author might have spared some physical indelicacies; and the rather, because they are repeated nearly in the same terms, in different parts of the work. Other repetitions and various omissions might be mentioned: but the publication, on the whole, promises to be of singular benefit to all who may have occasion to consult it. An English translation, with additions and corrections, would form a valuable present to the British public.

We have lately received the remaining volumes of this Dictionary, viz. Vols. xvi--xxiv. inclusive, which complete the design, and of which we shall take due notice at a future opportunity.

Muir.

ART. III. Traité de la Phthisie Pulmonaire, &c.; i. e. A Treatise on Phthisis Pulmonalis. By BRIEUDE, Member of the Medical Society of Paris, &c. 2 Vols. 8vo. Paris. 183. Imported by De Boffe. Price 108.

N

UMEROUS as are the works which have been written on the subject of pulmonary consumption, it is much to be lamented that very little has yet been done towards the cure of this insidious malady. A disease which so often selects for its victims the most amiable and most promising part of the community, which is frequently connected with hereditary disposition, and which so many circumstances of climate, fashion, or education, tend to excite or to promote, had a more than usual claim to the attention of the physician; and if his exertions are ineffectual in the cure of this complaint, when established, there is the more reason for exercising his utmost`endeavours in preventing or retarding it.

It is to the incipient stage of this malady, that the author of the present volumes more particularly devotes his attention: but, though he allows that, in advanced periods, medicine is generally ineffectual, yet he is of opinion that the treatment in such stages admits of much improvement; and that many practitioners have too hastily adopted the principle that, when the expectoration has become purulent, a cure is not to be expected. We are sorry that we cannot give the author the credit of having brought forwards any new views in either the treatment or the prevention of pulmonary consumption. His production, nevertheless, contains a very copious, and in general an useful, account of the different varieties of this disease, and exhibits a favourable view of the success which may attend our efforts to cure it at the more early periods. M. BRIEUDE apolo gizes, on the ground of necessity, for the frequent repetition of

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facts

facts and reasonings: but we cannot admit that such repetitions were requisite for the purposes of illustration; nor do we see the necessity for that minuteness of division, which is so frequently observable, and so evidently tends to spin out the work, and distract the attention of the reader. He has certainly afforded considerable assistance, in consulting this treatise, by the copiousness of his index; and such assistance, it must be confessed, is greatly wanted. His views on the nature and treatment of this disease would, however, have been much more lucid, if they had been more condensed; and they would have possessed greater utility, if the attention had been directed decidedly to the practice generally found to be most serviceable,

The first pages are occupied with an account of the Anatomy and Physiology of the Lungs; and here the author, contrary to analogy, and without any facts to support his idea, states his conviction, according to the opinion of Camper, (which he quotes) that the red veins perform, in this viscus, an office similar to that of the lymphatics.

In his account of the phænomena of respiration, he informs us that oxygen gas is absorbed, and azotic gas thrown out from the blood by this process. The azotic gas,' says he, which is found in the blood, would become a mortal poison, if it did not escape in some way: but it is by exhalation from the lungs that it is driven off; it is by this mode that nature purifies the humours, and frees them from a septic principle, which would soon corrupt them.' The decomposition of the atmospheric air in the lungs leaves the azotic gas to be returned by expiration; and this portion, he supposes, is carried off with that which escapes from the mass of blood, and is deposited in the cells of the lungs.

As far as we can judge from the short view which M, BRIEUDE gives of the subject, he discovers a very slender acquaintance with the established doctrines of respiration. Without going farther in this point, we may observe that he seems to be uninformed of the production of carbonic acid gas in the lungs; and he represents it as a well established fact, that a quantity of azote is continually extricated. An experiment mentioned by Mr. Davy in his Chemical Researches (with which the author appears to be unacquainted) seems to render it probable that a portion of azote disappears in respiration, and another portion is extricated during this process, Still, however, on the whole, there is rather less azote expired than has been inspired; and not more, as might be concluded from the statement of the present author.

The chapters immediately subsequent contain observations on the influence of the Nervous, Lymphatic, and Glandular

Systems,