DON FELIX DE, a celebrated Spanish naturalist, was born 18th May 1746. He studied first at the university of Huesca, and afterwards at the military academy of Barcelona. In 1764 he entered the army as a cadet, and in 1767 obtained an ensigncy in the engineer corps. In 1781 he was appointed, with the rank of captain in the navy, on a commission to lay down the line of demarcation between the Spanish and the Portuguese territories in South America. There he spent many years, observing and collecting specimens of the various interesting objects of natural history that abound in those wide and little known regions. In 1801 he obtained leave to return to Spain, and was afterwards appointed a member of the *Junta de fortificaciones y defensa de Ambas Indias*, a public board in which chiefly was centred the home government of the Spanish colonies. He died in 1811. His principal work is his *Travels in South America from 1781 to 1801*; published in French from the author's MS., by C. A. Walckenaer, with atlas and plates, 4 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1809. It contains a valuable account of the discovery, conquest, civil and natural history of Paraguay and Rio de la Plata; and embodies his former contributions to the zoology of these countries. The work is enriched with the notes of Walckenaer and Cuvier, and a notice of the author by the former.

DON JOSE NICOLAS DE, the elder brother of the naturalist, was an eminent collector of Italian antiquities; and withdrew to Florence when the French took possession of Rome in 1798. He was afterwards Spanish ambassador at Paris, but was displaced by Godoy, and was preparing to return to his antiquarian studies in Italy in 1808, when he died. His best claim to notice is the active part he took, as a minister under Val, in the difficult and hazardous task of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain. He died at Paris in 1804. B, the second letter, and first consonant, in all known alphabets excepting the Ethiopic, where it occupies the ninth place. It is a labial and mute, representing the compression of the lips, and consequently incapable of being uttered or pronounced without the aid of a vowel, or a forcible expiration equivalent in effect to vocality. This letter has a near affinity to the other labials, with which, indeed, it is interchangeable according as the compression of the lips, which it primarily indicates, is modified by simultaneous expiration; and hence, although its ordinary power or effect is intermediate between the smooth and easy sound of P, and the rough aspirations of PH, F, and V, yet, in the articulation of many languages, it is habitually confounded with one or other of the letters of the same class, and in the same language at different times, is frequently interchanged with its cognate consonants. Thus, ἀβαρος in Greek becomes favo in Latin; γαβαρος, gilvus; flabrus, fermo; μεγαρος, bursus; ἀμβος, ambo; θαλανος, balano; ἐπιαμβος, triumplus; and so in many other instances. Again, in Latin, the B of the olden time, and of the inscriptions, passes into V in a subsequent age; while, on the other hand, the P of the antique orthography is commuted into B in that of a more recent date. Hence we have abaros for abalos, arc for abe, vicir for hirit, curatus for curbatus, and hundreds of other analogous instances; while Poplius for Publicius, Poplicus for Publicus, Poplicola for Publicola, are of frequent occurrence in the inscriptions and other elder monuments of the Latin language. This letter is also sometimes inserted in the middle of compound words for the sake of euphony, and to prevent the hiatus which would otherwise result from the concurrence of vowels, as ambages, ambia, amburo; it is servile in the dative and ablative plural of the third, fourth, and fifth declensions of Latin nouns, and in the praterimperfect and future tenses of the first and second conjugations; and it is interchangeable with P, F, and other letters, both in the composition and conjugation of a number of verbs. In Hebrew, the name of the second letter ב, beth or beth, indicates the original hieroglyphy to have represented a house or temple; whilst an abbreviated form of the figure has been employed to denote the initial sound of the word in the spoken language; a principle, also, upon which the ancient Egyptians appear to have constructed their phonetic alphabet, or used the symbolical characters of their complex system of writing for representing the constituent sounds of proper names and of legends. A difference, however, will be observed between the two Phoenician forms of this letter, the first of which is that of a house or temple, and of the head and horns of some animal placed over it, perhaps those of a бык, бык, ox or wild goat; which would explain the assertion of Hesiod, that the second or third letter of the Phoenicians was represented by an ox. At all events the Phoenician, reproduced in the early Greek, has served as the basis of most modern varieties in the languages of the West; and, amidst every change which time, accident, or caprice, has superinduced, it is still easy to detect and distinguish the elementary or primitive form. With regard to the different sounds or powers attached to the letter in modern languages, these have varied within the limits of its natural affinity; the Germans giving it the effect of P, the Spaniards, Gascons, and others, that of V; and the modern Greeks sometimes that of V, but more frequently sounding it as we do F. The satirical epigrammatist who affirmed that in Gascony bibere is the same as rire, stated a literal truth, in as far at least as the pronunciation of the words is concerned.