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their heads, and with the upper canines well-developed, particularly in the males. In the latter respect they approach somewhat to Muntjacs of the genus Cervulus. These, however, are true Cervida, having well-developed horns, like the rest of the members of that family. In their general external aspect, the Moschide present much of the appearance of young Deer or Antelopes before their horns are sprouted. This resemblance has caused the reference to the Moschide of several animals, which have really no connection with them, and has burdened the group with several merely nominal species.

Of the genus Moschus, with which Dr. Milne-Edwards commences his essay, there appears to be only one well-distinguished species-the well-known Moschus moschiferus of Linnæus and the older authors. Several varieties exist of this animal, to which specific names have been given, but Dr. Milne-Edwards agrees with Prof. Brandt in referring them all to varieties of the same species. The Musk-deer thus considered has a wide range-extending throughout Central Asia, from the Altai to the basin of the Amoor and shores of the Pacific, and southwards, through Tartary and Mongolia, to Cashmir, Thibet, and the interior of Siam. Dr. Milne-Edwards enters at full length into the zoological and anatomical character of this animal, and pays particular attention to the special organs devoted to the development and secretion of the musk, which constitute its most remarkable peculiarity.

The genus Tragulus, to which Dr. Milne-Edwards next turns his attention, has a very different geographical distribution. It embraces some five or six representatives, all found in the southern part of continental Asia and its adjacent islands, which constitute what is called the Indian Region. They are immediately distinguishable from true Moschus by the entire absence of the musk-bag and its accompanying organs, but also by other weighty osteological and anatomical characters, which, according to the views of Dr. MilneEdwards, necessitate their removal into a distinct family. The principal differences from Moschus, are the diffuse and villous placenta -a character not found either in Moschus or in any other of the groups of Ruminantia, except the Camelidae-the less complicated form of stomach, which consists only of three instead of four divisions and the separation of the lower incisors by a median hiatus of considerable width, instead of their arrangement in a continuous line. These characters, some of which have already been

*

remarked upon by other Zoologists, are fully discussed by our author, and illustrated by several lithographic plates.

The species of the genus Tragulus, recognised by Dr. MilneEdwards, are the following:

1. T. javanicus of Java.

2. T. napu of Sumatra.

3. T. kanchil, Java, Borneo, Malacca, and Siam.

4. T. stanleyanus of Malasia and Ceylon.

5. T. meminna of India Proper.

The latter species presents some slightly divergent characters, and has consequently been separated generically by Dr. Gray under the title Meminna-which Dr. Milne-Edwards does not adopt.

In Africa, however, we meet with a single species of animal, allied to Tragulus, which seems fully to merit that isolation as regards its classification, which might have been predicated of it from consideration of its geographical range. The Moschus aquaticus of Ogilby, inhabits the west coast of Tropical Africa, from the Gabon to Senegal, and constitutes the only species of the Ethiopian type of the Tragulida, for which Dr. Gray has proposed the name Hyomoschus. The chief structural peculiarity of Hyomoschus, consists in the metacarpal bones not being united as in other Ruminants to form the canon-bone-a singularity first pointed out by Messrs. Falconer and Cautley.‡-A second species of this group, which was of wider distribution in a former geological epoch, is the very interesting Hyomoschus crassus of the Miocene formations of Sansan-originally described by Lartet as Dicrocerus crassus, and referred to the Cervidæ, but subsequently correctly transferred by Pomel to this genus. It is possible that the extinct genera Dremotherium, of Et. Geoffrey-St. Hilaire, Amphitragulus of Pomel, and Dorcatheruim of Kaup, may also be referable to this group of Ruminants, but further careful study and comparison of the remains of these forms existing in the principal Museums of Europe is requisite, before this can be confidently maintained to be the case. As regards Pomel's genus Lophiomeryx, also referred by Gervais||

* Rapp, Wiegmann's Archiv, 1843, p. 43; Leuckart, Müller's Archiv, 1843, p. 24; Pucheran, Arch d. Musée, vi. p. 285.

Dr. Milne-Edwards writes the name Hyamoschus, but the derivation being Üç-vòç sus-this is surely the correct orthography.

Calc. Journ. N. H. v., p. 579.-See also Pomel's observations, Compt. Rend. xxxiii. p. 17, (1851).

Paleont. Franc. p. 153, (ed. 2.)

to the Moschida, Dr. Milne-Edwards thinks that this is not its proper place.

In conclusion, Dr. Milne-Edwards gives us his ideas, as to the correct position of the families Moschide and Tragulidae in the Systema Naturæ-and presents us with a Conspectus of the species of these two families. The Order Ruminantia he would divide into two primary sections-the Ruminantia Phalangigrada, containing only the Camelidæ, and the R. Unguligrada, comprehending the following families:

1. Camelopardidæ.

2. Bovida. 3. Caprida.

4. Antelopida.

5. Cervidæ.

6. Moschidæ.

7. Tragulida.

The Moschida, he observes, are closely allied to the true Cervidæ, presenting the same structure as regards the placenta and all other important points, but distinguished by the absence of horns and by the presence, in the male sex, of the organs for the development of the musk. The Tragulidæ, on the other hand, differ entirely from the other Ruminants in the structure of the placenta, and seem to form the passage between the true Ruminants, and certain groups of the so-called Pachyderms (particularly the Suida), which, as we well know, are associated with the Ruminants by those who adopt the Artiodactyle and Perissodactyle division of the Ungulata. As Dr. Milne-Edwards observes, if an isolated foot of the Hyomoschus had been the first portion found of the fossil animal, without its living ally being known, it would certainly have been referred to a form allied to the Peccaries (Dicotyles).

LXIII.-NEW ZOOLOGICAL MANUALS.

(1.) COURS ELEMENTAIRE D'HISTOIRE NATURELLE, par MM. Milne-Edwards, A. de Jussieu et Beudant.-ZOOLOGIE. Par M. Milne-Edwards. Paris, V. Masson. 1862.

(2.) LE BACCALAURÉAT DES SCIENCES. RESUMÈ DES CONNAISSANCES EXIGEES PAR LE PROGRAMME OFFICIEL. HISTOIRE NATURELLE. Par A. Milne-Edwards. Paris, V. Masson. 1864.

(3.) A MANUAL OF ZOOLOGY, BY M. MILNE-EDWARDS, TRANSLATED FROM THE LAST FRENCH EDITION, BY R. KNOx, M.D. F.R.S.E. Second Edition, with many additional observations, and illustrated by 572 highly finished Wood Engravings. Edited by C. CARTER BLAKE, F.G.S. F.A.S.L. Honorary Secretary of the Anthropological Society of London; Foreign Associate of the Anthropological Society of Paris; Lecturer on Zoology, London Institution. Henry Renshaw, 386, Strand, London, 1863. (4.) ZOOLOGY. By W. S. Dallas, F.L.S. London, Houlston and Wright. 1859.

(5.) HANDBOOK OF PHYSIOLOGY. By William Senhouse Kirkes, M.D. Fifth Edition, carefully revised and enlarged. London, Walton and Maberley. 1863.

FROM the Report of the Public School Commissioners, vol. iii. p. 116, we learn that the Head Master of our largest Public School, when examined by those noblemen and gentlemen, had never even considered the question whether it would be possible to introduce certain branches of Natural Science, as optional studies into the intervals of that curriculum of games known as the "Eton System." We have thought that when that important functionary does find leisure for the consideration of this subject, he may turn from those parts of the four volumes on Public Schools, which have been most rightly characterized by Lord Malmesbury in the House of Lords, as "most humiliating, not only to those who sent their sons there, but to the whole nation," to peruse the excellent evidence given to the Commissioners by Professors Owen and Faraday, by Sir Charles Lyell, and by Drs. Carpenter, Hooker, and Acland. Under such a contingency, it is perhaps possible that the Head Master of Eton might come to think that a knowledge of the structure, of the functions, and of the classification of animals like and unlike our own selves, might occasionally be useful in and for itself; and that the process of acquiring this knowledge might, under proper limitations in favour of the prescriptive rights of play, serve as a wholesome discipline and training for certain orders of minds. Feeling a prospective sympathy with him in this his hour of puzzle, we propose in this Journal to pass in review, from time to time, certain compendia of Zoological Science, and to consider, firstly, whether a new edition of M. Milne-Edwards' "Zoologie," lately published in this country, is worthy to take the same rank as a Text Book of Biology, which the

Rev. Mr. Balston assigns to those Eton Manuals of Grammar, so unaccountably left unbought by all but Eton Philologists. The "Zoologie" of M. Milne-Edwards has, in its own country, run through some half dozen or more editions, in the form of which Dr. Knox gave us, in 1856, a somewhat badly executed translation. We regret to find that within the present year its dimensions have been curtailed from 576 pages down to 112, and that the entire amount of Natural History knowledge, including Botany and Geology, required in the year 1864 of the French Candidate, pour le Baccalauréat des Sciences, is contained within the narrow compass of 258 pages. A new edition of Dr. Knox's Translation of the unmutilated French work was brought out in this country last year under the editorship of Mr. C. Carter Blake. We are informed in a note prefixed to this edition, that out of respect to the memory of the late Dr. Knox, as few alterations as possible have been made in the revision left by him of his own translation, but that two Tables of Zoological Classification and a Glossarial Index have been appended by the present Editor. These additions, introduced to our notice at the commencement, and placed in a prominent position and type at the end of the book, give the second edition in great measure its distinctive character, and of their merits we herewith propose to say a few words.

This

In the first Table of Classification, which was used by Mr. C. Carter Blake in his Lectures at the London Institution, in 1863, we have the Bryozoa classed with the Zoophytes and Echinoderms, and making up together with them a sub-kingdom Radiata. arrangement, to say nothing of its scientific demerits, is in a literary point, an offence simply heinous, considering that M. Milne-Edwards, whose work Mr. C. Carter Blake is editing, was the first to show what all men have since accepted, to wit, that the Bryozoa (spelt Briozoaria in the Table of Contents of this edition) should be ranged with the lower Molluscs, or Molluscoidea.

Again, Mr. Carter Blake's sub-kingdom Articulata is made up of Insecta, Arachnida, Crustacea, Cirripedia, Annelida, Entozoa. How in the present state of our knowledge of structure, or how in any stage, present or past, of Classificatory Science, the special habit denoted by the term Entozoa could be used as zoological differentia is as difficult for us to understand, as it is for us to see how Cirripedia can be separated from Crustacea, or for Mr. Carter Blake to explain why he has altogether omitted to make mention of the

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