Audubon’s Ornithology, First Volume. 355 
fit to adopt this system then. We were gravely informed that 
our birds had been “so admirably figured by the celebrated Wil- 
son that little has been left for those who have gone over the 
same ground.”* Again we were told “Mr. Audubon’s two vol- 
umes may be consulted with advantage, but the scientific de- 
scriptions are destitute of that precision and detail which might 
have been expected in these days; and as the nomenclature is 
not that now in use, it is impossible to make out the modern gen- 
era,” &c. 
The verdict of the intelligent public bavi Bocporee: seen fit to 
set aside, in one instance, a decision so wholly unjust, and we 
believe it would have done so again. Still we think Mr. Audu- 
bon right in consulting his interest rather than incur the risk of 
having his new work shut out of the pale of foreign favor. We 
could not however forbear entering our humble protest against 
this cumbersome, unwieldy, top-heavy system, which, we trust, 
will soon crumble into fragments, from its own want of symme- 
try and ill-arranged proportions, and from its ruins arise a new 
one, upon which Dame Nature may not dread to look for fear of 
being frightened at her own distorted image. 
The volume before us, if it shall be succeeded by others of 
equal merit, affords a promise which we have no doubt will be 
fulfilled, of the best work on American ornithology yet published. 
To the student the plates it contains offer all the advantages that : 
are to be derived from the larger work, while the text, having 
been arranged and well assorted, is free from the confusion and 
ictions arising from new discoveries, and other necessary 
faults in a w work published, as was his first, in the midst of his 
labors, and while the results of his investigations were constantly 
rendering what he had before written, nugatory and out of date. 
In short, we have here presented to us at a single view, the dis- 
coveries and labors of a lifetime. 
A large portion of the text of this volume is the same swe 
what has already appeared in his former work. There is howev- 
er much that now appears for the first time, and which is replete 
with interest and information. We regret that our narrow limits 
forbid us to make extracts. We can therefore only glance at a 
few instances. 
* Swainson Gite Nattirel History and Classification of Birds, Lardner, V, p. 83. 
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