46 



CRITICAL N0TICE:S OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Memoirs of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, extinct Monsters of the Ancient 

 Earth, by Thomas Hawkins, F. G. S., &c. &c. London : Relfe and 

 Fletcher, 1834. 



Had not Mr. Hawkins confessed himself conscious of his own defects, 

 and appeared before us as his own humble apologist, we should have 

 been more inclined to quarrel with the manner in which he has thought 

 fit to conceal a few important scientific facts amidst a mass of silly 

 speculations and unmeaning verbosity. But let our author speak for 

 himself. He says in his preface — " The Geological Society of London 

 was the remote cause of the Book I now commend to my reader's indul- 

 p^ence, and since I am by no means sanguine of his praise, I must 

 acquaint him with the disadvantages under which it was written, that if 

 it should unfortunately incur his censure, he may know how to qualify it 

 at the least, if not to forego its expression altogether." 



After telling us that his education was neglected, and that he was left 

 to the unrestrained indulgence of a collecting mania from the age of 

 twelve, he proceeds — " therefore, the volume now before the reader has 

 but modest claims, — indeed, the title anticipates it — memoir signifying a 

 familiar exposition of one's own ideas in a latitudinarian degree, — and is 

 fiufficiently descriptive of the thing proposed — the assemblage of facts 

 relative to Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, merely. To this end 1 had but 

 to study their remains as an anatomist, and, if I may boast, that branch 

 of science has not been neglected by me, and to watch vigilantly the 

 progress of my plates, which are, after all that is said, the best inter- 

 preters of the original matter, if carefully examined. But the deter- 

 mination of the most remarkable individual difference, by which the 

 species should be known, devolved upon me — a serious responsibility as 

 the genera had their historians ; but having ascertained their consent to 

 my views upon the subject, for Messrs. Conybeare and De la Beche 

 published their's during the infancy of our acquaintance with these 

 extraordinary creatures, I at once referred it to the extremities. 



*' Naturalists wonder, if they bear not in mind the peculiar difficulties 

 that encounter the sauriologist when he grapples subjects of this kind. 

 The object — excessively rare — comes before him divested of the pro- 

 perties of living animals ; he sees but the osseous relics of beings that, 

 without analogue in the present creation, set all common methods of 

 reason at defiance, and leave him no choice but the exercise of opinion or 

 its abnegation. Now, mark the consequences of the latter postulate ; 

 the question sent a begging returns with a Babel of answers, and is 

 consigned, with the good and bad company it has picked up, to oblivion, 

 while the mover of it, tacking the name of one of his friends to the 

 generic appellation, lays the flattering unction to his own and another's 

 soul at the same moment that he betrays science. Thus, the records of 

 extinguished times and things are interpolated with the most fleeting 

 accidents of our own, — in the same spirit is ignorant Monkery painted 

 on its missal the Jewish virgin in the habit of a nun, and the disciples 

 shaven and hooded like itself. So critical a dilemma must plead for my 

 temerity, and I trust my reader will believe that I should be the very 

 first to forego for better distinctions the poor credit of my own, which I 

 will, nevertheless, vindicate until such be substantiated. 



