CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 820 



Longtailed Tit in confinement, but have never yet succeeded. A pair of old 

 birds which I once caught in a trap-cage, were extremely shy and obstrepe- 

 rous, and would eat nothing but insects. As it was soon found to be impos- 

 sible to supply them with a sufficienc^y of this food, they did not long survive. 

 1 have had no better succes:? with individuals taken from the nest, and the 

 species appear little fitted for confinement.' " 



" The covering of the I.ongtailed Tit looks more like hair than feathers; 

 and this, as well as its small size, rendei-s it a difficult matter to stuff it in a 

 satisfactory manner. Country bird-stuffers, indeed, will hardly undertake 

 the task." 



The style is, in most instances, modelled according to the nature 

 of the subject ; and wherever an opening is made for critical obser- 

 vation, it has usually arisen from the necessity of being somewhat 

 technical in particular descriptions. Altogether, it is impossible, in 

 our judgment, for a scientific work to be better adapted to the ca- 

 pacities of every description of readers ; and we have not the least 

 doubt of its circulation becoming very general. In its execution, 

 that is, as relates to the printing, paper, &c., this volume has more 

 than ordinary pretensions to the claim of neatness. 



The Ornilhologid' s Text Book is a work which has been much 

 wanted ; for without some guide in the choice of books, the student 

 is unable to grapple with his subject in the direct way which his 

 anxiety and impatience require. By looking over this review of 

 ornithological publications, it will be clearly seen which work me- 

 rits attention and which would be a waste of time in the perusal. 

 There are some volumes alluded to in this Text Book which we 

 scarcely think it necessary to have noticed ; but Mr. Neville Wood 

 has done so evidently with the intention of setting them up as bea- 

 cons against which to guard the inexperienced collector. It must 

 be admitted that the observations, generally, are dictated by the 

 most scrupulous impartiality ; but we are bound to dissent from 

 the somewhat harsh observations directed against the talented au- 

 thor of The Selection of British Birds. Criticism should, in all 

 cases, be divested of the least tincture of asperity ; and even if the 

 author had not been a lady — an accomplished and a literary one, 

 too — we should still have been of the same opinion as that expressed 

 in a former number, w^herein we endeavoured, in our critical notice, 

 to do justice to the talent which, in our estimation, that work 

 exhibited. 



We quit this subject with again expressing our admiration of the 

 ability which has been so conspicuously manifested in the two vo- 

 lumes which we have thus so cursorily noticed ; and with the hope 

 that we shall ere long again have to welcome another work by the 

 same acute and intelligent writer, on a theme so interesting to or- 

 nithologists, we close this confessedly too brief commentary on two 

 most valuable publications. 



