natural history.

“Baron Humboldt, in a memoir read to the Institute 19th February last, 1821, entitled, “New Observations on the Laws which we observe in the Distribution of Vegetable Forms,” states, that we already know nearly 56,000 species of cryptogamous and phanerogamous plants, 44,000 insects, 2,500 fishes, 700 reptiles, 4000 birds, and 500 species of mammiferæ.

In Europe alone, according to the researches of M.

Humboldt and M. Valenciennes, there exist nearly 80 mammiferæ, 400 birds, and 30 reptiles.

There are, of consequence, under this temperate boreal zone, 5 times as many species of birds as of mammiferæ; as, in like manner, there are in Europa 5 times as many compositæ as amentaceous and coniferous plants; 5 times as many leguminous as there are of orchideous and euphorbiaccous.”—Jourual of Science and the Arts. xxiv. 338.