I 



Defince of certain French Naturalists, 99 



are two among the best known naturalists of France. The 

 names of MM. Desmarest and Lesson will remind the zoolo- 

 gist of some of the most magnificent, and some of the most 

 useful, scientific works which have of late years issued from 

 the Continental press; of these gentlemen, therefore, shall we 

 now speak. 



Towards M. Lesson this style of language is peculiarly 

 misplaced. We will venture to affirm, that, after the indefa- 

 tigable Professor of Ley den, no living ornithologist has con- 

 tributed so much to extend this' science, or has added, by 

 personal research, so many new and important forms to our 

 museums. M. Lesson, to be sure, is not a man who merely 

 theorises in his closet, and frames systems " called natural " 

 within the walls of a museum. He has viewed and studied 

 nature somewhere beyond the atmosphere of Paris, or even 

 of London. He, and he alone, of all living ornithologists, 

 has contemplated those princes of the feathered creation, the 

 regal Paradise-birds, in their native air. He has given a 

 simple and unpretending account of their manners : and he 

 has thus been instrumental in solving a most interesting and 

 important problem in ornithological affinities. This dis- 

 covery, it is true, all but demonstrates a glaring error of the 

 writer by whom he is thus attacked ; but those who are most 

 eminent for real science are generally the most solicitous to 

 elicit truth. M. Lesson, like all men of ardent zeal and warm 

 feelings, may occasionally err from placing too much confi- 

 dence in first impressions : but it is an error inseparable from 

 their temperament : it is national ; and their character with- 

 out such impetuosity would be perfectly anomalous. But, 

 even admitting that this is a well-grounded charge against M. 

 Lesson, we must be permitted to say, that he possesses a 

 candour and a love of truth which will in vain be expected 

 from little minds and " minor critics." He does not doggedly 

 persist in an error, after he is convinced that it is one : the 

 error is voluntarily proclaimed, and unreluctantly rectified. * 

 In regard to a knowledge of nomenclature, it may be small 

 praise to confess that M. Lesson's far exceeds ours, did we 

 not think that, from this very circumstance, he is peculiarly 

 qualified to point out what animals are described, and what 

 are undescribed. That many species have been thought new 

 by us which are old to the Continental writers, need not create 

 surprise, when it is remembered that we are without museums 

 or libraries adequate to instruct us. The fact, in short, is of 



* See M. Lesson's observations on Trochilus recurvirostris Siv, 

 H 2 . . 



