OP BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY. 95 



the hairy Woodpecker, Picus villosus, been guilty, that, without 

 judge or jury, they should be deprived of their birth- right as British 

 subjects : especially, when the sable congener of the latter, Picus 

 martius, a much more uncommon bird than either of the preced- 

 ing, has, at length, however tardily, been admitted within the pale 

 of the British aviary ? 



But the point upon which we are principally disposed to quarrel 

 wath Mr. Selby is, his utter and most inexplicable omission of the 

 name, and of all allusion to the work, of his distinguished contem- 

 porary and rival, Mr. Gould. The first part of Mr. Gould's birds 

 of Europe, appeared in June, 1832 : Mr. Selby 's second edition bears 

 the date of 1833 : and yet the same silence is observed by the latter 

 respecting the splendid production of the former, as though it did 

 not exist. This is really " too bad." 



Such circumstance is alike disgraceful to Mr. Selby, and deroga- 

 tory to the pride and the splendour of human intellect and attain- 

 ment. Little men may be as narrows-minded and as selfish as they 

 please. We anticipate nothing better from them. The reptile and 

 the slug obey, in the indulgence of their crawling propensities, 

 merely the irresistible instincts of their low q,nd degraded nature ; 

 and thus aptly fill the situation in which, by their structure and ca- 

 pacities, they were originally destined to appear. But intellectual 

 Man, the Eagle of his kind, in pursuit of an imperishable rep ta- 

 tion, should soar far above all paltry views of mere emolument, and 

 indignantly scatter from his wing the debasing sordes of vulgar sins 

 and prejudices. It grieveth us to behold the splendid animal stoop- 

 ing from the lofty path of his aspirations and his destinies, to soil 

 his glowing plumage with the mud of earth, — to pursue ignoble 

 game, or glut his craving upon carrion. After all, great and high- 

 ly-gifted spirits, like the opulent in worldly gear, can best afford to 

 be liberal to those around them : and our own not very limited ex- 

 perience of mankind invariably prompts us to look for some striking 

 defect of cerebral development, — some paucity or poverty of intellect, 

 in those who stubbornly refuse, or are slow, to render these dignified 

 and ennobling acts of grace and justice to the fair claims of contem- 

 porary genius and enterprize. 



A Systematic Catalogue of British Birds, arranged according to 



