Bibliographical Notices. 243 



picted two dark human figures, their heads surrounded with a radiant 

 halo, and these black-breasted Golden Plovers magnified to twice their 

 natural size, and gazing upon us each from its mossy tuft. It is as 

 if two mortals had a conference on the heath with three celestial 

 messengers — and so they have. Presently a breeze rolls away the 

 mist, and discloses a number of those watchful sentinels, each on his 

 mound of faded moss, and all emitting their mellow cries the moment 

 we offer to advance. They are males, whose mates are brooding 

 over their eggs, or leading their down-clad and toddling chicks among 

 the to them pleasant peat-bogs that intervene between the high 

 banks clad with luxuriant heath, not yet recovered from the effects 

 of the winter frost, and little meadows of cotton-grass, white as the 

 snow-wreaths that lie on the distant hill. How prettily they run 

 over the gray moss and lichens, their little feet twinkling, and their 

 full, bright and soft eyes gleaming, as they commence their attempts 

 to entice us from their chosen retreats ! In the midst of them alight 

 some tiny things, black-breasted too, with reddish backs and black 

 nebs, and neat pointed wings, which they stretch right up and then 

 fold by their sides. These are Plovers' Pages, which also have their 

 nests on the moor ; the mist rolls slowly away, and is ascending in 

 downy flakes the steep side of the corry, whence comes suddenly on 

 the ear the scream of the Curlew, — pleasing too, but to the deer 

 startling." 



How delightful must the perusal of these volumes prove to the 

 pure-minded man, who devotes his leisure hours to intellectual enjoy- 

 ment in connexion with the wonderful works of nature ! Here, he may 

 live his boyhood over again ; he may give reins to his imagination 

 and revel in a little world of his own creation, feeling assured it has 

 a true existence to the senses when these are awakened and cultivated 

 for the highest and noblest end of all perception. 



Perhaps better selections might have been made ; but such as they 

 are, they possess this advantage, that in these days of cheap tra- 

 velling, their beauty and truthfulness can be easily tested by all who 

 feel interested in the subject, and to whom even a day's release from 

 the carking cares of the mart and the desk, to breathe the free moun- 

 tain air, is profitable both for body and mind. We believe, that 

 after due consideration, most of the readers of these volumes will 

 agree, that in the valuable descriptions of the habits of many birds, 

 there is a nice perception and striking expression of that mysterious 

 analogy which exists between the physical and the moral world, 

 which leads man to clothe with life and sentiment everything which 

 attracts the attention in the aspect of external nature, bringing all 

 that strikes the senses into unison with all that touches the soul. 



We believe, such is the author's essentially truthful nature, that 

 a more extensive acquaintance with the British and Continental Mu- 

 seums, with the literature of the subject, and with other men of like 

 pursuits, would have materially influenced those peculiar views in 

 classification and nomenclature, which have been developed by re- 

 search and patient study under the comparatively limited advantages 

 which he enjoyed. 



16* 



