The British Naturalist. 51 



the River, the Sea, the Moor, and the Brook. This plan, it is 

 intimated, has been adopted in order that the subjects might 

 be " viewed in those masses into which we find them grouped 

 in nature ; the plant or the animal having been taken in con- 

 junction with the scenery, and the general and particular use ; 

 and, when that arose naturally, the lesson of morality or 

 natural religion." The boundaries thus prescribed could not, 

 it is evident, be very rigidly adhered to ; and, accordingly, 

 our author, in his descriptive narrative, rambles about " ad 

 libitum " fi'om one object to another, just as we should have 

 been disposed to do ourselves, had we actually performed, 

 amid the wilds of nature, these very excursions, which are 

 here only presented to the imagination. The consequence is, 

 that subjects are occasionally introduced into each depart- 

 ment, which might with equal, or perhaps greater, propriety, 

 have been treated of under some other. This, however, if it 

 be an evil at all, is but a trifling one ; and as the plan of the 

 work is at any rate simple, natural, and inartificial, we shall 

 not quarrel with it on that score. But not to tarry longer at 

 the threshold, we shall enter at once " in medias res," and 

 proceed to point out what we conceive to be some of the 

 beauties and some of the errors of the volumes before us. 



In the second chapter, " The Mountain," i. e. the first after 

 the introduction, some interesting particulars are given rela- 

 tive to the history of the wood-cat, which, our author strenu- 

 ously contends, is a distinct species from the common or 

 domestic kind. We are not prepared to deny this position, in 

 the face of authority which appears to be grounded on know- 

 ledge and experience of the subject ; though hitherto we have 

 always been accustomed to follow the vulgar opinion, that the 

 one is only a variety of the other. And still we would ask — 

 Is there more difference between our domestic favourite and 

 its prototype of the woods, than is reasonably to be looked 

 for in the case of two animals in such widely different condi- 

 tions ? " Among domesticated animals," it must be admitted, 

 ** colour proves nothing:" but as to size, habits, and dispo- 

 sitions, is there not found as great a discrepance between 

 individuals of the domestic variety, as exists between the 

 generality of these and the wild cat ? Some, for instance, are 

 docile, gentle, and fondling in the extreme * ; while others, 



* Cats are generally said to be attached to places, not to persons ; and 

 the remark, in the main, may be true enough. We have known many 

 instances, however, of their showing a marked and decided preference for 

 particular individuals. In one instance a cat attached herself inseparably 

 to a labourer in our employ, attending him at his work, and lying on his 

 coat like a dog ; and retiring at intervals to the barn or the shrubbery, &c., 



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