618 AMATEUE NATURALISTS. 



ger of venturing out of one's depth the risk one incurs of becoming 

 ridiculous, by being an Amateur Naturalist. 



At page 70, our author, speaking of birds, makes the following re- 

 mark : " The breast-bone is formed like the prow of a ship, so that 

 the bird can pass easily through the water." This is an error ; the 

 ridge, vulgarly called the keel, does not facilitate its progress 

 through the water, but through the air j its office being to afford 

 accommodation to the pectoral muscles which work the wings. 

 Speaking generally, it is, as a matter of necessity, much deeper in 

 the flying, than in swimming birds : among the latter it is also not 

 only clothed with flesh, but covered with plumage impervious to the 

 water ; and so disposed as to render the breast nearly flat : vide, 

 passim, that of an unplucked duck at the first poulterer's you pass. 



At p. 72, Mr. Fergus considers the bat as being a bird. Now the 

 merest tyro in ornithology knows that no bird suckles its young, and 

 brings them forth alive : this the bat does, and is therefore arranged 

 in the class Mammalia, separated only, in the systems of the best 

 authors, by the quadrumanous animals, from man himself. At p. 84, 

 he tells us, without noticing any exception, that fish are provided with 

 a scaly coat of mail, which, he seems to think, serves not only for their 

 defence, but to facilitate their motion through the water. It would have 

 been as well, perhaps, for him to have known that the eel, the ray, 

 and even the shark, possess nothing of the kind. 



At p. 86, we find the following passage : " The innocuous Llama, 

 which uses neither feet nor teeth against its enemies, is not destitute 

 of the means of defence. It is provided, we are told, with an acri- 

 monious saliva, which it can eject to the distance of several yards." 

 Had the Reverend Henry Fergus been a practical, instead of an 

 amateur naturalist, he would have known that " the innocuous 

 Llama" has canine teeth of considerable power; in fact, at the 

 Zoological Gardens, an individual of the species very recently bit a 

 keeper's thumb off. The acrimonious saliva of the which our author 

 speaks is mere fiddle-de-dee. The Llama, when irritated, ejects its 

 lump of cud which is irritating only from the spiculae of half-masti- 

 cated grass which it contains. 



At page 89, the reverend author talks of the sting of a bee as 

 being " a little piece of armour ! " At page 124, he braves common 

 criticism so far as to call the domestic hen a stupid and timorous bird ! 

 At page 292, he says, that the few serpents which are venomous, 

 form a protection to all the tribe. This is so far from being correct, 

 that in all countries, almost every species, however innocuous, is 

 indiscriminately destroyed, if possible, when met with, on account of 

 the popular attributes of the tribe to which it belongs. Thus, in 

 England, the harmless snake is quite as frequently battered to death, 

 as the venomous viper : so that the few which are noxious may, in 

 fact, be deemed a serious evil rather than a protection to the rest of 

 the tribe. 



At page 121, he calls the cayman A FISH ! He might just as well 

 have denominated my Lords Althorp and Anglesea alligators. 

 The crocodiles are lizards. Nobody, before our reverend author, so 

 far as our reading extends, ever ventured to call the reptiles fishes. 



