CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 137 



the nomenclature of the work under review, but fortunately the 

 book contains much that fully atones for any trifling delinquencies 

 in those departments ; and if it has been found difficult to add much 

 new matter relating to habits, the descriptions, being for the most 

 part original and accurate, will be perused with considerable inte- 

 rest. The sections on the external and internal anatomy of the class 

 are evidently written by one perfectly versed in the task he has un- 

 dertaken. These chapters are illustrated, in a very superior man- 

 ner, by numerous engravings, executed from drawings by the au- 

 thor. 



Mr. MacGillivray reprobates, and with justice, the inattention of 

 ornithologists to the internal anatomy of birds ; and if we are not 

 disposed to place so much confidence in it as a basis of classification 

 as we find our author doing, we may at least agree with him in re- 

 gretting the occurrence of such errors as the following, appearing, 

 too, under the auspices of undoubtedly one of the first zoologists of 

 the day. After describing the osseous system of birds, he says : — 



'* This superficial inspection of the osseous parts of birds will suffice to 

 render the relations of the external parts intelligible, and prevent the stu- 

 dent of Ornithology from falling into those strange mistakes to which per- 

 sons are liable whose knowledge is not more than skin deep. I may be 

 allowed to adduce a few examples from the Natural History and Classification 

 of Birds, by AVilliam Swainson, Esq. ' The leg,' he says, ' is obviously di- 

 vided into three parts : 1, The thigh ; 2. The shank or tarsus ; and 3. The 

 foot itself, composed of the toes. The thigh is subject to very few variations 

 beyond relative length, and in being more or less clothed with feathers. In 

 aquatic birds it is generally naked before it reaches the knee-joint.' Never, 

 in any aquatic bird, is the thigh naked ; but it is obvious that Mr. Swainson 

 is not aware that birds have a thigh. Again, ' the humerus [referring to the 

 extremity of the cubitus] is generally termed the shoulder ; the flexum 

 [pointing to the wrist] is the shoulder joint ; and the axilla [reference to the 

 pollex] which corresponds to the cubitus, is commonly called the shoulder 

 margin.' To mistake the wrist joint for the shoulder joint is a blunder which 

 might have been avoided by inspecting a skeleton, or even feeling for the 

 bones in the wing of any common bird." — p. 33. 



Our author believes that 



" It is very doubtful whether the sense of smell be acute in any order of 

 birds; for it has been most satisfactorily proved by Mr. Audubon that in 

 the Vultures, at least in those of the genus Cathartes that occur in 'North 

 America, which were supposed to possess it in the greatest perfection, it is so 

 inefficient as not to indicate to them the existence of putrid flesh in their 

 immediate vicinity." — p. 51. 



For an interesting instance in which some Crows were unques- 

 tionably directed to carrion by the sense of smell alone, wc refer 

 our readers to The Naturalist, vol. ii., p. 34. 



In the account of the Red Grouse (Lagopus Brilanniciis ) occurs 

 an animated descTiption of an adventure of the author's, in return- 

 ing from a botanical excursion through the Hebrides and the south 



VOL. Vn., NO. XXI. s 



