719 
PART II. 
REVIEWS. 
Art.I. Catalogue of Works on Natural History, lately published, 
with some Notice of those considered the most interesting to British 
Naturalists. 
Britain. 
Transactions of the Plinian Society. Session 1828-9. Edin. 8vo, pp. 40. 
We have already (Vol. I. p. 291.) given some account of the origin and 
intention of this Society; and having from time to time been favoured 
with papers read before it, we have only to express our satisfaction at the 
evidence of prosperity afforded by the present publication. None of the 
papers read before the Society are printed at length in their T'ransactions ; 
but abstracts are always given, in the very judicious and useful manner 
adopted by the Geological Society of London. 
Rhind, William, Member of the Royal Medical and Royal Physical Societies 
of Edinburgh: Studies in Natural History; exhibiting a Popular View 
of the most striking and interesting Objects of the Material World. — Illus- 
trated by ten engravings. Edinburgh. Small 8vo. 6s. 
This work is got up, no doubt, with the best intentions ; it might perhaps 
have passed for something thirty years ago, but it is far from coming up to 
the taste and science of the present day. Fourteen sections treat of nature 
generally, reproductive powers, geology, the atmosphere, rain, &c., an 
autumn day, vegetables, birds, the ocean, insects, bees and ants, winter, 
man, and the city and country. The first section commences with the fol- 
lowing sentence. “ If we could suppose a human being in the full posses- 
sion of all his faculties, and in the maturity of his judgment, led to an 
eminence, and for the first time made to behold the earth and the sky, the 
waving trees, sparkling waters, green meadows, and the happy sporting 
of birds and animals, what would be his expressions of wonder, delight, 
and admiration!” Would it be too much to say that this is most un- 
scientific ? What would be the value or the extent of the man’s wonder 
or admiration, who saw for the first time things with the nature of which he 
was unacquainted? It is only by a knowledge of nature intimately and 
in detail, that we can admire rationally ; the “ expressions of wonder,” of 
ignorance, afford but a momentary gratification, because they cannot reach 
further than the senses. In the concluding section, on the City and the 
Country, it is said, “ Compare the mild, peaceful, rosy-faced rustic, sitting 
by his door after the summer day’s labour is over, fondling his little ones 
on his knee, to the pallid, fierce-looking, and turbulent frequenter of the 
city gin-shop, or the ragged and demoralised inhabitants of the close and 
crowded alley.” It is too late in the day for this sort of sentimentalism ; 
the comparison would not be fair, unless it were made between persons of 
equal education and equal command of the necessaries of life, in which case, 
we can assert from observation, that the inhabitant of the “ close and 
