326 Review of M. 0. Des Murs's ' Oologie Ornithologique.' 



ting-on of the hallux, have all been respectively taken up, and 

 perhaps we may say abandoned, — broken reeds which pierce 

 the hands of those who lean thereon. To the number of these 

 fiovoTToSXoi must be added the students in the school of Tran- 

 scendental Anatomy, and the believers (of whom the race seems 

 to be fast becoming extinct) in the once loudly praised cir- 

 cular system. It would therefore seem to be a difficult matter 

 to propose any new theory of classification formed from an ori- 

 ginal point of view. Yet we believe that this much is due to 

 M. Des Murs, that, though many ornithologists may have taken 

 into consideration instances where oology seems to support or 

 dispute their inferences, no one had hitherto attempted labo- 

 riously and conscientiously to accumulate a collection of facts, 

 such as is contained in the volume we are reviewing, with the 

 single and undivided purpose of grounding upon them a sy- 

 stematic scheme. 



We deem it right thus early to bespeak for M. Des Murs^ 

 treatise the careful attention of our readers ; but, on the other 

 hand, it has so lately come into our possession, that we must 

 acknowledge that we have not had time to bestow the investiga- 

 tion we should have wished on the multitude of observations — 

 each of which of course requires individual and close considera- 

 tion — contained in its pages. We must therefore deal with the 

 work in more general terms, and, where we can do so, let our 

 author be his own spokesman. 



First as to M. Des Murs himself a few words may not be 

 unacceptable ; for such is, unfortunately, the deplorable indif- 

 ference of many ornithologists in this country to the labours of 

 their foreign brethren, that to some of our readers his very name 

 may be new. For the past seventeen years he has been a con- 

 stant contributor to M. Gueriu-Meneville's journals, chiefly on 

 matters connected with that of the work under our review, and, 

 while at the same time he has edited the ornithological portion 

 of the narratives of several of the scientific expeditions under- 

 taken by his countrymen in various parts of the world, he has, 

 single-handed, produced a book — the ' Icouographie Ornitholo- 

 gique ' — a worthy sequel to the well-known series of plates of 

 Buffon and of Temminck, 



