CRITICAL N0TICE3 OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 269 



The Natural History of Birds. By Robert Mudie, Author of ** The 

 Feathered Tribes of the British Islands," " Guide to the Observa- 

 tion of Nature," &c. London : Orr and Smith, Paternoster Row. 

 1834. 



There is much soundness in the prefatory comments of Mr. Mudie on 

 the influence which a pleasurable and interesting mode of communicating^ 

 knowledge acts on the minds of the young, in contradistinction to that 

 dry and wearisome mode which long custom has adopted in most of our 

 seminaries of learning. *' The natural desire for knowledge," he justly 

 observes, " has only to be preserved alive, enticed by that which ia 

 pleasant, and kept in the way of that which is useful ; and all will learn, 

 not only voluntarily, but in spite of opposition. That such would be 

 the case, if the young were not sickened with mechanical trifles in which 

 there is no occupation for the mind, and condemned to drudge at that 

 in which they can see no usefulness and find no pleasure, is not only 

 probable, but demonstrated in the cases of those who have been spared 

 this weariness of the spirit, and also saved from those errors into which 

 the unoccupied minds of the young are so prone to fall. To save from 

 those errors, and at the same time to keep the natural desire alive and 

 on the alert, there is no subject better fitted than natural history." 



Natural history, when considered in its largest extent, observes the 

 author, is the quarry from which the materials of all the sciences, as 

 well as those of the arts, are brought, and yet it is a science wholly of 

 observation. We may place the plant or the animal in peculiar circum- 

 stances, and watch the results ; but still these diflfer in kind from those 

 which we obtain when we make experiments on dead matter. As the 

 science, therefore, is wholly one of observation, all the information 

 arising from it should be as much as possible in accordance with the 

 mode in which knowledge occurs to us by observation. This is necessary 

 not merely to secure the possession of the knowledge itself, but to secure 

 that enjoyment of what we know, which constitutes the real value and 

 use of knowledge. The knowledge of the plants, the animals, the 

 succession of the seasons, and of all the other appearances of nature, 

 would avail us little, if it did not bring along with it a more hearty love of 

 nature, and a more ready perception of the practical use of all that 

 nature presents to us. The book which treats of natural subjects should 

 come as near as possible to the actual observation of nature ; and for 

 want of this attention, the ordinary books which are laid before the 

 young and the ignorant, not only fail in imparting that knowledge which 

 is professed to be communicated, but rob the parties of the desire of 

 obtaining it, and thus in reality defeat the very object which they profess 

 to serve. This species of deception is, unfortunately, not confined to 

 natural history, but runs pretty largely through all the departments of 

 knowledge ; and although it is probably worse in the case of natural 

 history than in that of any of the more abstract sciences which depend 

 less upon observation; yet it is mischievous in every case, as withdrawing 

 the attention from the reality and the practical enjoyment and use. 



Mr. Mudie has accordingly fashioned this work on the Natural 

 History of Birds in a style so lucid and entertaining as to make it 

 amusing and instructive to the tyro, and sufficiently comprehensive to 

 the adult. To render it as extremely useful as possible, too, we observe, 

 that he has, in every instance, taken the simplest views of all those 

 matters which come within the scope of the volume, and expressed them 

 in the plainest language. Still, however, he truly asserts, ** the beauty 



