260 ON THE PLUMAGE, NEST, AND EGGS, &C, 



trade, — land-fowl, waders, and swimmers, — carpenters, masons, 

 miners, weavers, and tailors,* to boot, — insects and their larvae, 

 most piteously impaled, like the relics of poor Montao;u, upon the 

 thorn of this literary shrike; and unmercifully mangled by his 

 beak and talons. Neither the exalted character of the immortal 

 Swede, nor the profound quinary system of the luminous Mister 

 Mac Leay, nor the order Lepidoptera, of the orderly Mister 

 Stephens, albeit fenced round on all sides, by the formidable 

 mihi (O mihi, Beate Martin !), nor even the floating nest of the 

 humble dobchick, — nothing in air, in earth, or in water, — can be 

 safe from the attacks of this northern bird of rapine, — this king- 

 bird of the Omnivori, happily " new to tbe British Fauna."f 



My friend, Mr. Gould, of the Zoological Society of London, 

 is bringing out a first-rate work upon European Ornithology ;j 

 which will, I would fain hope, set all disputed matters on the 

 subject finally at rest, and restore to their right position the 

 heads of birds (and the craniad, by the bye, of certain wrong* 

 headed Professors), which have been woefully turned in the 

 celebrated Ornilhological Dictionary of British Birds (see page 

 35, article. Sinciput.)^ And what, in the name of common 

 sense, and the King's College, could an Ornithological Dictionary 

 have treated of, save Birds F 



To conclude, the dark — the iron — ages of Ornithology, 



" Pierced by a Ray 

 Of British light, have long since passed away." 



Bewick, by his spirited doings upon the block (no lack of respect 

 to the memory of that highly-endowed and pains-taking man), 

 hath since ushered in the wooden — and Rennie, still more lately, 

 the brazen age; but the duration of the latter will be brief; its 

 days are numbered : for (prithee, forgive, O gentle reader, the 

 miserable pun) the golden age of Ornithology, is, at last, dawning 

 upon us. 



SENEX. 

 Sept. 19th, 1834. 



* Vide Rennie's " Architecture of Birds," Contents. 



f Vide Rennie's " Conspectus of Butterflies and Moths," page vi. : manifestly 

 borrowed from the hive of Mr. Mihi Stephens — wax, honey, grubs, and all. 



\ " The Birds of Europe," by J. Gould. Nine parts of this splendid work have 

 already appeared. The author, evidently a Falco, of the golden eagle kind, has 

 taken wmg nobly; soars far above all his European competitors; and leaves even 

 the American Audubon himself at a goodly distance below. 



§ Sinciput, in our schoolboy days, was wont to be rendered forehead. Things 

 are wonderfully changed since then. Steam, gas, and the " schoolmaster" have 

 verily turned the heads, not only of men, but of birds also : since it is stated on the 

 high authority of James Rennie, Professor of King's College, that the sinciput of 

 birds is now actually where the occiput used to be. And is this the learned scribe, who 

 hath presumed to quiz the Latinity of Naturalists? Vide "Conspectus of Butter-, 

 flies," p. vii. After all, we suspect that he really belongs to the Crow femily, and 

 may correctly be referred to the bare-faced species. 



