Retrospective Criticism. 283 



the ground ? The branches of the tree, which took their lead 

 diagonally from the bole, might possibly have given way under 

 a heavy pressure, because they were inclined more or less 

 from their perpendicular ; but the upright bole itself would 

 stand uninjured, and defy for ever any weight that could be 

 brought to bear upon it from above. 



I now leave the assemblage of wild beasts, the solid masses 

 of pigeons as large as hogsheads, and the broken trunk of the 

 tree two feet in diameter, to the consideration of those British 

 naturalists who have volunteered to support a foreigner in his 

 exertions to teach Mr. Bull ornithology in the nineteenth 

 century. 



The passages upon which I have just commented form part 

 of " the facts" on which R. B., in Vol. VI. of this Magazine, 

 [p. 371.] tells us that the value of Mr. Audubon's Biography 

 of Birds solely rests. No wonder that, ruit alto a culmine. 

 By the way, I observe, at the end of that Biography, a most 

 laudatory notice by Mr. Swainson. He tells us that Audubon 

 contemplated Nature as she really is, not as she is represented 

 in books ; he sought her in her sanctuaries. Well, be it so ; 

 I do not dispute his word : still I suspect, that, during the 

 search and contemplation, either the dame herself was in 

 liquor, or her wooer in hallucination. — Charles Waterton, 

 Walton Hall, Jan. 19. 1834.. 



2^he British Species of Eel, their Mode of Propagation (V, 

 313. 744. )j and their Habits. — In the just-published Second 

 Series of Jesse's Gleanings in Natural History, Mr. Yarrell, 

 Dr. William Roots, and Mr. Jesse have supplied thirty-eight 

 pages of information on the economy of eels. Mr. Yarrell 

 has there given a synopsis of all that had been, and now is, 

 known on this subject, and into this synopsis has digested the 

 result of all the facts which the research of Dr. Roots, of 

 Mr. Jesse, and of himself has acquired ; and he has referred 

 with commendation to the discoveries of Mr. Couch registered 

 in our V. 313., and to those of W. B. in V. 744. This trea- 

 tise on the economy of eels is, therefore, the most perfect one 

 which has appeared. 



The Goldfish mth a double Tail Fin. (159.) — Dr. Han- 

 cock has conjectured {Quart. Journ. of Science, No. xvi. 290.) 

 that, as the bones composing the rays are, in this, as in other 

 fishes, double, the lusus of a double fin may arise from some 

 casual defect of the cohesive substance and investing mem- 

 brane of the rays, whence it may be that the bones probably 

 diverge, and constitute the double fin. — James Fennell. 



