84- Notice of the Arrival of Twenty-six of the Simmer Birds 



from Bewick, asserting that a " nest of this bird, with a very 

 great number of young, was found in a hole in a tree in 

 Axwell Park, June 18, 1801 ;" which this ingenious author 

 has had the candour to admit in his labt edition to be erro- 

 neous *. And a third from Loudon's Magazine of Natural 

 History, which rehites to the Spotted Flycatcher {Muscicapa 

 Grisola) and which the reader will find verbatim under the 

 article Beam Bird, at page 26. This exhibits a degree of 

 carelessness anything but creditable to a scientific work, and 

 altogether unworthy of Montagu, one of the best ornithologists 

 this country has hitherto produced for accuracy of obser- 

 vation and indefatigable research. This, however, is not a 

 proper place for any extended criticism upon this edition ; but 

 vi^e are free to confess that we have been not a little amused 

 with the Professor's observations on Latham's General Hi- 

 story of Birds, containing a description of upwards of four 

 thousand species, which he would without mercy squeeze into 

 a half-guinea volume, at the same time charging the public 

 one guinea for his own, which does not contain those of three 

 hundred f ! 



43. Bohemian Chatterer {Bombycilla garrula). — One of the 

 finest specimens of this beautiful bird that has come under 

 our observation was killed near Harraby Bridge on the 8th 

 of December last : the colours were remarkably bright and 

 vivid, and four of the centre tail-feathers were terminated 

 with red waxen appendages similar to those on the secon- 

 daries. — It was mounted before we had an opportunity of 

 seeing it, consequently the sex was not ascertained by dissec- 

 tion ; yet there can be little doubt that it was a male. This is the 

 second specimen having waxen appendages on the tail-feathers 

 that has been taken in this vicinity. About the same period 

 another of these birds was shot near the village of Crosby- 

 upon-Eden. 



119. Hoopoe {Upupa Epops). — On the 8th of September 

 one of these handsome birds was observed by some children 



* " The indefatigable Montagu, in the Supplement to his Ornithological 

 Dictionary, doubts this information respecting the great number of young 

 said to be found in the nest in Axwell Park, in June 1801, as above de- 

 scribed. The editor at this distant period of time has forgot by whom 

 this account was given ; but he now also doubts the accuracy of the in- 

 formation as to the great number of young ones." — Bewick's British Birds, 

 ed. 1826, vol. i. p. 208. 



f " His (Dr. Latham's) General History of Birds, in ten volumes quarto, 

 price twenty-one guineas, is essentially Linnasan in character ; and though 

 it forms a tolerable book of reference, which might be condensed into a 

 half-guinea volume, it cannot with any propriety be called a history." 

 p. xxix. 



pecking 



