This is one of the latest publications in the 'Manuali Hoepli,' and, as will be understood by the title, is an attempt in a small volume to condense the information which is distributed over a very wide field. Thus, in the introduction, we find the subject of Zoological Nomenclature, with a considerable number of rules or axioms respecting the Law of Priority. A chapter is devoted to Anthropology, another to Medical Zoology, and a third to Agricultural Zoology. These, in addition to sections on Anatomy, Embryology, Physiology, and Systematic Zoology, comprised in a small volume of 426 pages, sufficiently proclaim that the subject is necessarily treated in a most restricted sense. As the book is written in the Italian language, it is unlikely to be much in vogue among English readers, but is worthy of record as showing a widening of horizon as to special subjects, though distinctly peculiar in ignoring the claims of Palaeontology to be included in its purview. It is probably intended for the use of schools.
The last publication of this series—of which we have already noticed some other volumes—is devoted to Birds, and is written on precisely the same method as pusued in the treatment of other animals. The facilities of a synoptical classification and a profuse illustration are again presented to the student; and if the first does not always secure its object—as few of these attempts do—and the second are somewhat coarse, we have at least a manual which is inexpensive, and one which will no doubt prove helpful to many a young ornithologist. Over six hundred figures are given in the comparatively short space of 252 pages.
