414 Taylor's Boy and the Birds. 



the fact" of eating the eggs of other birds. (Brit, Nat., vol. 

 ii. p. 133.) 



To return to the work before us. The classification em- 

 ployed, as might be expected from the time when it was written 

 (the preface to the third edition is dated 1812), is none of the 

 best. Thus the black redstart is classed with the wagtails, 

 while the common or tree redstart is placed with the warblers, 

 and the whole work abounds in errors equally flagrant. The 

 translator, moreover, in lieu of correcting these defects, has 

 added to them, by giving the worst and least appropriate of 

 the vernacular names. Two papers, inculcating sound prin- 

 ciples of ornithological nomenclature, will be found in that 

 excellent periodical the Analyst, No. x. p. 238,, and No. xi. 

 p. 305. However, in other respects, he has acquitted him- 

 self creditably, and has added some interesting particulars 

 in the shape of notes. The work will be a great acquisition 

 to the lovers of our feathered minstrels. — S. D. W, Burton 

 on Trent, June, 1835. 



Taylor, Emily ; with Designs by Landseer, Thomas. The Boy 

 and the Birds. Small 8vo, 194 pages, 22 engravings. 

 London, Darton and Harvey, 1835. 



The habits of the skylark, puffin, chimney swallow, greater tit, 

 blue tit, long-tailed tit, golden eagle, osprey, rook, willow wren, 

 goldcrest, green woodpecker, redbreast, and cuckoo, wren, fern- 

 owl, eider duck, and gyr falcon, are treated of; and sixteen 

 of them severally relate their own biography to a boy anxious 

 to acquire a knowledge of it. In sixteen of the pictures, each 

 of this number of species of birds is introduced, accompanied 

 by certain associations coincident with the habits of that species, 

 as a tree to the woodpecker, a rock to the golden eagle, cliffs 

 to the puffin, &c. ; and into each of this number of pictures 

 the enquiring boy is introduced in some attitude, different in 

 every picture, indicating attention to the communication which 

 the species of bird is making to him. The ideas and language 

 which the writer has given to the birds to deliver are of a 

 cultivated order. The writer is subject to one inconvenience 

 in the application of the plot or mode of relation adopted : it 

 is this, that, as every bird must be supposed familiar in the 

 whole of its own history, the writer must relate in the sufficient 

 style of one whose knowledge has not imperfection ; still, the 

 work is a pleasing and a superior one. 



Boyle, J. Forbes, F.L.S. & G.S., M.R.A.S. : Illustrations of 

 the Botany and other Branches of the Natural History of 

 the Himalayan Mountains, and of the Flora of Cashmere. 



