236 Retrospective Criticism. 



and Yarrow, particularly in the two former. They formed 

 deep holes in the gravel, always in the middle of the river, 

 and in the currents between the pools, to which they con- 

 veyed stones of a large size in their mouths ; but for what 

 purpose I never could learn. They were hated, and some- 

 what dreaded, by the country people, who, like cats by the 

 shrew (Sorex craneus), killed, but never ate them. They 

 were extremely irascible when their place of spawning was 

 approached. The late well-known Tom Purdie, forester and 

 gamekeeper at Abbotsford, told me that he had speared many 

 of them in his younger days ; and that he never killed one 

 but that it brought out a stone in its mouth, sometimes of the 

 size of 8 lb. or 10 lb. weight; and that they, immediately on 

 feeling themselves wounded, seized on the largest stone within 

 their reach. They are now rarely to be met with in the Tweed ; 

 but I understand that they are still plentiful in the Annan and 

 the Nith, and their larger tributaries. — W. L. Selkirkshire. 



[Valuable original information on the sexual condition, 

 mode of spawning, &c, of the lamprey and lampern, are given 

 in V. 679 — 681., by our correspondents T. G. of Ciitheroe, 

 and S. T. P. T. G. has noted, in V. 290., the aversion to 

 eat of lampreys which is extant in Lancashire; and W. L. 

 has noticed, above, the existence of the same feeling among 

 those who reside contiguous to the Tweed. In the Wor- 

 cester Herald, of Feb. 7. 1835, there is a singular proof that 

 the same feeling is not universal, in the fact of an adver- 

 tisement, part of which we quote : — " Lampreys. Maria 

 Coates, successor to Mary Heath, whose receipts have been 

 so universally approved of for potting and stewing lamperns 

 and lampreys in their respective seasons, begs to return 

 thanks to her friends for favours already bestowed, and to 

 inform them that she has at this time an excellent supply of 

 lampreys potted and stewed, for which she will be happy to 

 receive their commands," &c] 



Art. IX. Retrospective Criticism. 



Audubon's Plates of the Birds of America, [p. 1 84.] — Your 

 correspondent, who signs himself B. [p. 190.], refers your 

 readers to a review of Audubon* 's Plates, by W. Swainson, Esq., 

 F.R.S., which appeared in the Magazine of Natural History 

 for May, 1828. [L 43—52.] 



Mr. Swainson says in that review, " I have heard that Mr. 

 Audubon resided twenty-five years in the woods of America, de- 

 voted to this one pursuit. Without any other testimony than the 



