280 REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Ip Mr. MacGillivray has faithfully performed all that is promised in the 

 above title, in this new treatise on British Ornithology, we shall truly have no 

 fault to find with him — no " Crows to pick." In some particulars it decidedly 

 has the advantage over other works on the same subject. We allude especially 

 to the minutely-detailed and accurate descriptions of the internal organization, 

 both of birds as a class, and of individual species. Our author points out and 

 regrets the total ignorance of at least one most estimable and able naturalist on 

 this subject — Mr. Swainson. But while, with Mr. MacGillivray, we admit 

 the importance to the scientific zoologist of a knowledge of Anatomy, we are not 

 disposed to go the length that he does on this subject. We can never, for 

 instance, consider internal structure, of itself, a sufficient guide wherewith to form 

 a system of Ornithology. Our author disclaims having added one to the numer- 

 ous systems already " in partial use," though on what grounds, is to us not quite 

 so obvious, since the arrangement, both of the larger and smaller divisions, is in 

 many particulars quite new. In order to prove that Anatomy is an insuffi- 

 cient basis for classification, however ably the investigation may be conducted, 

 we need only refer to the Regne Animal of the illustrious Cuvier, or to the 

 History now before us. As, however, Mr. M'G. has, according to his own state- 

 ment, only placed the birds in the most convenient order for description, it were 

 perhaps unfair to criticise minutely on this topic. 



As regards nomenclature, the author is not averse to reform, and as effected a 

 few good alterations, and one or two others which may be deemed unnecessary. 

 He holds that single English names are the best, though in practice he appears to 

 have no particular rule in this respect — at all events, his laws are not like those 

 of the Medes and Persians, which alter not. In one respect we may safely 

 charge him with inconsistency ; for though in the abstract he abjures the plan 

 of supplying each genus and species with a separate English name, yet, in 

 another part, in order to justify the alteration of an English appellation, he 

 adduces as a reason the very system he had previously denounced as impracticable.. 



This work contains excellent descriptions of the habits of the birds included, 

 with occasional extracts from the letters of friends. The following is from the 

 pen of T. Durham Weir, Esq., of Boghead, Linlithgowshire : — 



" The strong attachment which the feathered kind have to their offspring, is truly astonishing^ 

 Although the Carrion Crow is one of the most cunning of birds, yet I have deceived him with the 

 young of the Rook. I once shot a female with all her brood, just as she was putting a part of a 

 bird into the mouth of one of them. Being anxious to get the male, I took a young one out of 

 the nest, and sent it with a boy to the rookery at Balbardie, to pick out four exactly of the same 

 size. In this he succeeded. Having put them into the nest, I went back again in the course of 

 two days, and shot him in the very act of feeding the young Rooks with grubs. 



" Some naturalists assert, that when Crows carry off eggs, they break the shell, and thrust 

 their bills into them. Whether this be their general practice or not I cannot affirm ; but I can 

 vouch for one fact to the contrary, which came under my observation. I recollect when I was- 



