90 Jar diners Natural Histori/ of Humming-birds, 



familiarised " to the business and bosoms of men" as to make it 

 safe to risk the expense of publishing a volume of sentimental 

 poems, and scraps of poetry, on the objects with which natural 

 history acquaints us. We wish the author of the compilation 

 all success : he deserves it. 



Jardine, Sir William, Bart. F.R.S.E. &c. : The Natural His- 

 tory of Humming-birds, Vol. II.: illustrated by 31 plates, 

 coloured ; with a portrait and memoir of Pennant. Small 

 8vo, 166 pages. Edinburgh, London, and Dublin, 1833. 6s. 



Very cheap, the pictures striking, and doubtless as accu- 

 rate as the nature of the materials and facilities extant, which, 

 we believe, are neither excellent nor numerous, for producing 

 such a work, will admit. Stuffed specimens, and the plates 

 of M. Lesson, in his work on the Trochilides, most of these 

 probably derived from stuffed specimens, are the main sources 

 of the figures. In the existence of this case, we presume it 

 is necessary to associate with the pictures the consideration 

 of the possibility of error in the attitude, and symmetry of 

 disposition of the parts, of almost every bird. Indeed, we have 

 learned that the birds are placed on the branches in a very 

 faulty manner. In the pictures, their feet and legs are ob- 

 vious enough. In life and nature, when the birds are upon 

 branches, you never can have a view of their thighs or legs ; 

 and, at the very farthest, you can only now and then get a 

 sight of their toes. A remarkable feature in the humming- 

 bird is the shortness of its legs, which are always concealed in 

 the thick and puff-like plumage of the abdomen ; so that, when 

 the bird is sitting or flying, you can never see its legs; and 

 the only means to get a view of them is catching the bird itself. 



The spirit of the text is the names, synonymes, dimensions, 

 proportions, colours, structure, and systematic affinities of the 

 species; but is devoid of those poetical notices of habits which, 

 in a treatise on such lovely creatures, we can but wish were 

 supplied. At the end of the volume there is a systematic 

 synopsis of the species of humming-birds, with their names 

 and distinctive characteristics. The memoir of Pennant, pre- 

 fixed to the volume, imparts much useful information. The 

 frontispiece is a portrait of Pennant. 



The Natural History of Humming-birds, notwithstanding the 

 qualifying considerations which we haxe, suggested to apper- 

 tain to its merits, will, we conceive, conduce to two excellent 

 effects. It will lead general admirers of the forms and hues 

 of created beings to examine them in the spirit of the science 

 of natural history, and thus extend that science; and the 

 work will, at the same time, become a point to which those 

 of British naturalists who may have opportunities to supply 



