92 NOTICES OF SERIALS. 



evidence, which does not exist, will be discovered hereafter. Disputants of this 

 calibre must be satisfied to have their bold assertions discounted, in the con- 

 ditional mood and the paulo-post-futurum tense. We have treated Dr. Knox's 

 lucubrations, up to this point, seriously ; we must now confess a misgiving that 

 has flashed across us sometimes, considering the jeering tone that runs through 

 even his most dogmatical utterances. We have had to ask ourselves more than 

 once — is this jest or earnest ? — can Dr. Knox be quite serious in anything — 

 unless it be in personal pique and jealousy, and in his grave offences against 

 propriety, good taste, and candour? For the sober discussion of a philosophical 

 question there is far too constant a straining after irony ; — if, on the other hand, 

 it is meant for jest, it must be set down as something of the longest and the dullest. 

 We were not surprised to learn, from the cover of the April number, that this 

 insertion has been the occasion of inflicting upon the Editor a voluminous cor- 

 respondence, conveying to him, without exception, disapproval of the tone and 

 tenor of Dr. Knox's article. Neither shall we be surprised if his readers are not 

 disposed to concede the complete exemption from responsibility, which the 

 Editor insists upon, for having lent to such a composition — only not insidious in 

 its tendency, because of its being so broadly offensive in tone — the extended 

 circulation which the Zoologist enjoys, and so deservedly in general, hitherto. 

 To this unlucky protege it was not merely the latchkey that the good-natured 

 Editor granted, but a particular introduction. His subscribers were duly pre- 

 pared to read Dr. Knox's Zoology with great interest — which the Editor himself 

 had not read when he penned this recommendation. We can make allowance— 

 haud ignari mail— for human weakness, for editorial weariness. We have, indeed, 

 read these thirty pages through — it was our duty, and they were before us fair 

 in type ; but we can conceive that a proportionally bulky, cramped, manuscript 

 may have offered a much more deterrent aspect to other aching eyes, amid the 

 urgency of craving compositors and the cries for " copy," while the relentless 

 month, hurrying to its close, was to be prevented with a sturdy punctuality. 

 The Editor trusted to Doctor Knox's judgment in confining himself to the sub- 

 ject of his paper as implied in the title. We admire the confiding simplicity — 

 which we could scarcely have the courage to imitate. It is a good while ago, 

 that one whose untimely flight from earth science and friendship have not yet 

 ceased to deplore, Edward Forbes (and his kind heart so tempered the keenness 

 of his intellect, that he could scarcely apply the rod, however merited, without 

 some healing unction), wrote concerning Dr. Knox, " We are afraid the Doctor 

 is too hardened a scribe ever to change the manner and matter of his discourses ;" 

 and we are not aware that he has shown any more signs of grace since. But 

 if the Editor did trust too fondly, and was betrayed, he has taken the earliest 

 opportunity to remedy the inadvertence, at least to neutralize that recom- 

 mendation by an equivalent upon the cover of the following number, where he 

 has repudiated, in the most unreserved and unequivocal manner, both the views 

 themselves, advocated in the pages of the Zoologist by Dr. Knox, and the spirit 

 in which they are discussed. We have waited in hopes, yet further, to see some 

 similar note of dissent from him in a position as permanent and conspicuous as 

 that essay itself will occupy in the completed volume. It is so far well ; — it will 

 be better still that no possible room should be left for an unjust suspicion that 

 the Editor withholds his sympathy from the politics and the polemics which 

 Dr. Knox has obtruded here — only on the wrapper of the Zoologist. Quadru- 

 peds. — (S. C. Tress Beale) Sagacity of the Eat. Birds.— (Lieut. Blakeston, 

 R.A.) Birds of the Crimea. (Capt. Hadfield) Notes on a Female Brambling. 

 (Rev. H. Harpur Crewe) Occurrence of the Hooded Crow in Derbyshire ; Note 

 on the Robin and Butcher Bird. (E. Hearle Rodd) Occurrence of the Fire- 

 crested Regulus near Penzance. (C. Tress Beale) Note on the Common Wren. 

 (Samuel Carten) Abundance of Wagtails. (Henry Smurthwaite) Notes on the 

 Great Bustard ; Rare British Birds in Germany. (C. W. Shepherd) Occurrence 

 of the Avocet and Rose-coloured Pastor near Rochester. Proceedings of 

 Societies. — Entomological Society, January 5, 1857. 



