50 The Naturalist. 



really is, could have produced a work of which any naturalist, however 

 aged or experienced, might well be proud; and which all, who aspire to 

 the character of a British ornithologist, must possess ; and, once possess- 

 ing, will frequently peruse." 



As Mr. Neville Wood is one of the " eminent scientific 

 men " under whose auspices the Natiiralist is conducted, we 

 think it would have looked quite as well if the reviewer had 

 measured out to him a more moderate dose of adulation. We 

 are not sufficiently acquainted with Mr. N. Wood's produc- 

 tion to judge of its merits as an ornithological work ; but, in 

 the December Number of this Magazine, p. 640., Mr. T. C. 

 Wood remarks that his brother's book " contains little that 

 is new, but it puts us in possession of what was previously 

 known, in a portable form." 



Upon the whole, the Naturalist does more credit to the 

 printer than to its conductors ; but there certainly are symp- 

 toms of improvement in the last two numbers ; and some of 

 the extracts from foreign journals are well selected. Each 

 number has, for a frontispiece, a coloured plate of some animal, 

 which is accompanied by a description. Here, we think, the 

 editors have shown bad taste : there is no novelty in the 

 execution of the plates, or in the subject which they are 

 intended to illustrate; and they are, consequently, devoid of 

 interest to the naturalist, and cannot be very attractive to 

 general readers. No. 3. contains a plate of the duck-billed 

 platypus ; and the describer, Mr. Frederick Ryland, gravely 

 informs his readers that the name Ornithorhynchus was as- 

 signed to this animal because there was " some doubt as to 

 whether it could properly be arranged under any of the 

 existing classes of Vertebrata" (p. 97.)> instead of confining 

 this explanation to the specific term paradoxus. Nor does he, 

 in any part of his observations, hint at the real meaning of 

 the generic appellation, although he remarks that, besides the 

 name of Ornithorhynchus, it is more frequently called the 

 " duck-billed animal," from the peculiar form of its beak, 

 (p. 101.) No. 5., for December, was to have contained a figure 

 of the kingfisher ; but the editors observe that the plates were 

 so inaccurately and badly coloured, that they did not like to 

 disfigure the work by their insertion. Now, we had rather 

 see the commonest woodcut that illustrates some new fact in 

 zoology, than five hundred such plates as those which have 

 appeared in the Naturalist, Even looking at it as a mere 

 matter of business, we think that a change of system w r ould 

 prove advantageous ; for the number of purchasers who are 

 attracted by showy figures must be very few compared with 

 those who support a publication upon the ground of its in- 

 trinsic merit. We know, however, that the conductors of 



