quinary system, which has been ably traced by Vigors, Swainson, and others, though mammalogy has received but little attention, in this respect, compared with ornithology. ORDER I. QUADRUMANA. FAMILY IV., BAT FAMILY,-(VESPERTILIONIDE.) * By some authors, this has been corrupted into Hedge Hog, as if this species were in the genus Porcus! TRIBE IV., RUMINATING TRIBE, (RUMINANTES.) Common Ox FAMILY I., OX FAMILY,-(BOVIDE.) Ox, (Bos, Antiq.) Bos communis, (W.) FAMILY II., ANTILOPE FAMILY,—(ANTILOPIDE.) Several genera are admitted in the foregoing list, which are not generally received: such as the Ass (Asinus) and the Rabbit (Cuniculus). The laws which govern the construction of genera should, however, be similar throughout Zoology; and if the Grey Squaterol (Pluvialis cinerea, of Willughby) may be separated from the Golden Plover, (Pluvialis viridis, Will.), surely the Ass may be placed in a separate genus from the Horse. The writer of the excellent article, Ass, in Partington's Cyclopædia of Natural History, thinks differently; and the point must be decided after further research. The arrangement of Mammalogy is yet in its infancy, and, indeed, it may be doubted whether any department has kept pace with Ornithology, which, being the most interesting department of Zoology, has received the most attention and engrossed the largest share of interest. Derbyshire, Feb. 5, 1836. S. D. W. * Dormer is derived from dormire, to sleep, as this animal sleeps through the winter. [Usually spelt Dormouse.-ED.] 73 ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. Ir our improved chemistry should ever discover the art of making sugar from fossile or aerial matter, without the assistance of vegetation, food for animals would become as plentiful as water, and mankind might live upon the earth as thick as blades of grass, with no restraint to the increase of their numbers, but the want of local room. "* After having recovered a little from the astonishment which this singular passage may have excited, perhaps, in the Malthusian, not unmingled with the dread of "mankind living upon the earth as thick as blades of grass," and the horror of multiplying, not merely to "the starving point," but to the absolute want of room whereon to fix a local habitation, we shall find, on quietly contemplating the subject, that, absurd as Darwin's idea confessedly is, it would be by no means easy to demonstrate the impossibility of raising food from inorganic matter. Tannin, or that peculiar matter contained in barks, which, by combining with the gelatine of skin, forms leather, is as strictly a vegetable production as sugar, and yet, by a circuitous process, may be formed from "fossile or aerial matter," and even from matter altogether inorganic in its origin. We have, however, no intention of attempting to prove the plausibility of Darwin's suggestion, but shall confine our remarks to some of the singular, and even startling changes which chemical processes effect in organic substances. "Saw-dust itself is susceptible of conversion into a substance bearing no remote analogy to bread, and though certainly less palatable than that of flour, yet no way disagreeable, and both wholesome and digestible, as well as highly nutritive."+ This is calculated to excite surprise, "but when persons not familiarized with chemical speculations are told that a pound weight of rags can be converted into more than a pound weight of sugar, they may regard the statement as a piece of pleasantry, though nothing, says M. Braconnot, can be more real.”‡ Let us, then, study a few of the changes produced in organic matter by the action of heat, moisture, and other agents. As the number of organic substances is, however, far too great for present examination, we will confine our attention to two only-the woody fibre of vegetables, and the muscular fibre, or fibrin, of animals. Woody fibre, in a state of purity, that is, after every substance * Botanic Garden, add. note xxxix, to part i. |