314? Descriptions and Figures 



purpose of incubation, and then in no great quantities) would 

 seldom rove beyond the protected enclosure. 



The teal and wigeons stay with me till the last week in 

 April ; long after the pochards and the main flocks of mal- 

 lards have winged their flight to northern polar regions ; and 

 a white male pheasant has taken up his abode here, for seven 

 years, without having been once seen to wander half a mile 

 from the house. 



Birds thus protected have very different habits from those 

 which are exposed to the caprice and persecutions of man. 

 When the ornithologist pays attention to them, in their safe 

 retreat, where they can follow, without molestation, the im- 

 pulse of that instinct which has been so bountifully given to 

 them, he will have great cause to suspect that there is many 

 an error, and many a false conclusion, in the works which we 

 have at present, on the habits and economy of the feathered 

 race. These errors are, no doubt, quite unintentional on the 

 part of the writers on British ornithology ; and can only be 

 corrected by great care, and a frequent personal attendance 

 at those places where birds are encouraged and befriended. 



Charles Waterton. 

 Walton Hall, May 18. 1833. 



Art. III. Descriptions and Figures of some Marine Animals* By 

 Mr. Andrew Mathews. With Remarks by a Contributor. 



Mr. Mathews is an intelligent collector of natural pro- 

 ductions in South America. He is frequently mentioned in 

 the Botanical Miscellany of Dr. Hooker, and has received 

 the high compliment, from that illustrious botanist, of having 

 his name commemorated in a new genus of plants, Mathewsza. 

 The following figures were communicated to us in a letter 

 dated "Lima, February 8. 1831;" but as the descriptions 

 which accompany them are very short, and in several respects 

 imperfect, it has become necessary to add a few remarks, 

 which, though far from satisfactory, may render them more 

 useful to our readers. Before, however, we proceed to this 

 examination, we will quote a passage from the letter, since it 

 confirms the accuracy of the observations of an esteemed 

 correspondent. " During my passage," says Mr. Mathews, 

 " from England to Chile, thence to the Friendly Islands, and 

 back to Lima, I paid some attention to the luminosity of the 

 sea, and had extracted some remarks from my journal, with an 

 intention of sending them to you ; when, upon looking over 



