JRetmie's Architecture of Birds. 427 



pletely r.ullified by publishing such works as the Polarisation of Lights Hy- 

 drostaiicSy Pneumatics, &c. &c. 



In the 28th number of the Westminster Review is an admirable article, 

 setting forth, in no measured terms, the extreme inutility for the proposed 

 purpose of such publications. The writer very justly observes, at p. 372. ; — 

 " If the observations above hazarded on the matter of instruction to be 

 conveyed to the people be just, a series of treatises, pretending to be for 

 their use, of a more preposterous description, can hardly be conceived. 

 What, for example, could be expected from a treatise on dynamics being 

 read by one of the poor labourers of Kent who clamorously demanded a 

 rise of wages ? What instruction, moreover, could be conveyed to him by 

 a treatise in which the subject-matter is conveyed after the following fa- 

 shion : * The orifice of discharge, as indicated by the dots in b, was an 

 hyperboloid of the fourth order.' * In rivers or open channels, the velocity 

 and quantity discharged at different depths would be as the square roots 

 of those depths.' From these passages alone (and, be it remarked, they 

 are a fair example of the style displayed throughout the whole article) one 

 of two things may be fairly concluded : either the committee were totally 

 ignorant of the people to whom they were addressing themselves, or, if they 

 were not so ignorant, they were totally incapable of judging of what was 

 required to instruct them. Here, in the very outset of their career, they 

 committed two gross and palpable errors : first, they made choice of the 

 wrong matter ; secondly, from the manner of their instruction, they were 

 utterly incomprehensible to nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every 

 thousand of the labouring classes." 



The object for which I have taken up my pen is not so much to make a 

 comparison between the two publications, as to point out to the directors 

 of them, that, without caution, the same evil will befall the " entertaining " 

 as has befallen her sister the " useful," viz. an overweening show of learn- 

 ing ; but, 1 trust, it is from a better feeling that we have evidences of it in 

 the " entertaining," than what, I suspect, has produced the same effects in 

 the *' useful : " it is, I conceive, a laudable desire of showing the researches 

 of the compiler more than a wish of exhibiting his learning. The parti- 

 cular portion of the work that I wish to bring before their notice is, the 

 quoting of nearly every author that has written on the subject of ornitho- 

 logy. It is seldom that the same author's name is quoted consecutively ; 

 but, with a strange affectation, a series of generic and specific names are 

 given, from different writers, all " good men and true," doubtless, in their 

 vocations ; but, as the more numerous class of readers of the volume in 

 question are seldom possessed of more than one work on ornithology (if 

 even that), the names of so many different authors, without a clue to find- 

 ing the original, renders the Architecture of Birds almost a sealed volume 

 as to its usefulness. 



I have every reason to believe that the intention of the compiler has 

 been to give what he conceives to be the best names, and from the best 

 authorities ; and which, doubtless, is the case. But he would afford a most 

 incalculable advantage to those persons whose means do not allow of their 

 possessing many works on natural history to refer to, if he had given, in a 

 note at the foot of the page-, the Linnean name of the bird, which v/ould 

 be the means of readily elucidating most of the mysteries (to the unlearned) 

 of his very excellent book. The above improvement would be of great 

 service ; but I will mention a plan that I deem much more advantageous 

 and interesting still ,* which is, that, at the end of the next volume (for, of 

 course, on so delightful a subject as the economy and habits of the feathered 

 tribe we may hope to have several volumes), a synoptical table, if not of the 

 whole family, at least of those mentioned in the volume, should be at- 

 tached. — i?. //. 



