BRITISH ZOOLOGISTS. 109 



are illustrated by plates which are elaborately and often 

 very beautifully coloured ; but the text is of small value. 

 Dr George Shaw, who was assistant-zoologist in the 

 British Museum, was as copious a writer as Donovan, 

 but his works are in the main mere compilations. The 

 two most important are 'General Zoology,' in fourteen 

 volumes (1800-27), and the 'Naturalist's Miscellany,' 

 twenty-four volumes, with more than a thousand plates. 



To this period also belongs the celebrated artist- 

 naturalist, Thomas Bewick, so universally famed for his 

 unrivalled delineations of animals, and for the immense 

 advance which he effected in the art of wood-engraving. 

 Thomas Bewick was born at Cherryburn, near Newcastle- 

 on-Tyne, in 1753, and died in 1828. As an artist, his 

 work has received full and critical examination in more 

 than one well-known treatise. As a naturalist, he is 

 best known by his ' General History of British Quadru- 

 peds,' the first edition of which appeared in 1790, and his 

 ' History of British Birds,' of which the first volume 

 appeared in 1797, and the second in 1804. The 

 illustrations of these two works have never been sur- 

 passed for power of expression and truth to nature. He 

 possessed 'the royal stamp of genius,' and with it 'the 

 humbler, yet quite as necessary, gift of perseverance; 

 and together these led him to approach nature in 

 simplicity, to receive her lessons with faithfulness, and 

 to depict what he saw with unfailing certainty and 

 loveliness.' * 



In addition to the above, the present period produced 

 two naturalists who have obtained a permanent fame for 



* ' The Life and Works of Thomas Bewick,' by David Croal Thomson, 1882. 



