THB FKATHEBKD TRIBES OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 83 



the species the survivor mourns in singleness in case of casualty to its 

 mate, for when the season comes round the odd bird pairs the same as 

 ever, and the note, though plaintive to our ears, is a love song, and not a 

 lamentation in the bird." (Ibid.) 



Like a sagacious instructor, Mr. Mudie has rendered "learning" 

 agreeable ; he has presented us with the most animated pictures of the 

 feathered tribes, given with all the accuracy of one closely describing 

 natural appearances, yet invested with a spirit, a freedom, a graphic 

 beauty of design and colouring which, immediately, dissipate the idea of 

 a dryly technical detail. The bird is not the tame portraiture of a wearied 

 model, nor of a creature shorn by confinement of its genuine character- 

 istics ; not yet is it a laborious description of the cold and lifeless 

 specimen presented in the cabinet of the collector. He traces the eagle 

 to its eyrie amidst " the sublime precipices and peaks," or the warbler 

 to its nest hidden by the way-side, in the bushes or the bright heather ; 

 he watches it in its haunts, follows it on the wing, becomes spectator of 

 its feufls, its rivalries, its predatory excursions, and its stratagems to 

 elude discovery or capture ; and finally, associates with it the locality 

 which it frequents. All this is done with the precision of the naturalist, 

 and the felicitous spirit of a painter who, like Landseer, never sacrifices 

 veracity to brilliancy, but combines both so exquisitely as to produce a 

 resemblance which arrests the gaze not only by its fidelity, but its beauty. 

 Without any straining for *' effect,'' his descriptions are touched off in 

 admirable style, utterly distinct from the elaborate creations of the 

 professed landscape-mcfArers, who indulge us with artificial scenery, 

 sunshine, and azure, of a character too theatrical for applause. ITie 

 landscape of Mr. Mudie comes before us in mists or brightness, in sun- 

 shine or storm, a revelation of moors and mountains, and torrents dashing 

 from the hill tops, or of " picturesque islets," and vales and rich corn- 

 fields, each constituting an appropriate back-ground to the theme. It 

 has all the vigour and freshness of reality, and is dwelt upon with the 

 enthusiasm of a lover of nature ; yet concise as it is beautiful, it neither 

 fatigues nor diverts the attention prejudicially from the actor in the 

 scene. He is particularly happy in a nerve and an originality of expres- 

 sion which enable him to place the object at once, and vividly, before 

 the eye ; and whether he is revelling and glorying in a glimpse of the 

 wild sublimities of the Highlands, or stooping to identify *' the stems of 

 scattered ray-grass like a thin bristling of copper wire," he is in both at 

 home, and equally successful. Indeed from the enthusiasm with which 

 he expatiates upon the superb scenery of the mountains of Scotland, 

 independent of certain demonstrative idioms which occasionally creep 

 into his style, we conjecture that our author is inspired by a partiality 

 still stronger than that by which the cosmopolite lover of the sublime 

 and beautiful is influenced. The amor patrice, we imagine, gives added 

 energy to his delightful pen, and in this opinion we are confirmed by his 

 spirit-stirring account of the eagles and their eyries, as well as by his 

 jealous sarcasm upon the unfortunate eagles of the county of Kerry. 

 (Vol. i. p. 127-) Mr. Mudie seems to have taken fire at the idea that 

 that royal and magnificent bird, the Falco chrysaetos, should deign to 

 close her broad pinions amidst the romantic solitudes of the Emerald 

 Isle. Yet we cannot help thinking that had he ever wandered through 

 the wild shores of the west, he might have discovered localities and 

 temperature not ill-suited to the monarch of birds. Mount Nephin, in 

 Mayo ; Croagh Patrick, to the South of Clew Bay ; Mangerton, South- 

 west of the Lake of Killarney ; Slieve Donard, in the county of Down ; 



