CHAPTER XIII. 



WHILE the sale of edition after edition of the 

 " Quadrupeds " was going on with great success, 

 I turned my thoughts to the " History of British 

 Birds." I felt greatly charmed with, and had long 

 paid great attention to, the subject ; and I had 

 busied myself very much in reading various works. 

 As far as I can now recollect, the first books I had 

 become acquainted with were " Brookes and 

 Miller's Natural History," and " Dr. Smellie's 

 Abridgement of Buffon." These were now thrown, 

 as it were, into the back-ground ; having been 

 succeeded by Pennant's works. I might name 

 others I had perused, chiefly lent to me by my 

 kind friend George Allan, Esq. These consisted 

 of " Albin's History of Birds," Belon's very old 

 book,* Willoughby and Ray, &c. Mr. John 

 Rotherhamt gave me " Gesner's Natural History." 

 With some of these I was in raptures. Willoughby 

 and Ray struck me as having led the way to truth, 

 and to British Ornithology. The late Michael 



[*" Belon's very old book," as Bewick styles it, published "at 

 the Sign of the Fat Hen" ("In Pingui Gallina"), Paris 1555, is 

 still worthy the pursuit of the collector, and contains a " vast " of 

 quaint information, ornithological and gastronomic. Much of it is 

 sound and valuable, although some of the stories are of the Sir 

 John Mandeville type. For instance, he relates that " the pelican, 

 which builds its nest on the ground, finding its young stung by a 

 serpent, weeps bitterly, and piercing its own breast, gives its own 

 blood to cure them " a variation on the older myth.] 



t Mr. John Rotherham, son of the late Dr. Rotherham, of New- 

 castle, who had been a pupil of the good and great Linnaeus. 



V 



