ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 821 



Pages 136, 187. Humming-birds and colihris. — The eminent 

 naturalists (Lesson, Azara, Stedmann, &c.) who have supplied so 

 many excellent descriptions of these birds, are not, unfortunately, as 

 rich in details of their manners, their food, their character. 



As to the terrible unhealthiness of the places where they live 

 (and live with so intense a life), the nan-atives of the old travellers — 

 of Labat and others — are fully confirmed by the moderns. Messieurs 

 Durville and Lesson, in their voyage to New Guiana, scarcely 

 dared to cross the threshold of its profound virgin forests, with their 

 strange and terrible beauty. 



The most fantastic aspect of these forests — their prodigious fairy- 

 like enchantment of nocturnal illumination by myriads of fire-flies — 

 is attested and very forcibly described, as far as relates to the coun- 

 tries adjoining Panama, by a French traveller, M. Caqueray, who has 

 recently visited them. (See his Journal in the new Revue Frangaise, 

 10th June 1855.) 



Page 153. The valuable niuseurn of anatomiccd collections — that 

 of Doctor Auzoux. — I cannot too warmly thank, on this occasion, our 

 esteemed and skilful professor, who condescends to instruct us igno- 

 rant people, men of letters, men of the world, and women. He 

 willed that anatomy should descend to all, should become popular ; 

 and it is done. His admirable imitations, his lucid demonstrations, 



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