352 BRITISH BIRDS. 



found himself called upon to Avrite even a portion of the 

 famous " History of British Birds " that bears his name, 

 and it certainly cannot be said that the text of that work 

 contains anything of much originality or importance. 

 "It is respectable but no more," and would by itself, 

 founded as it was on the style of Pennant, and admittedly 

 deriving most of its information from his works,* in all 

 probability have attracted but scant and passing attention. 

 And yet this work of Bewick has met with extraordinary 

 success, it has passed through edition after edition ; it 

 has instructed and delighted thousands upon thousands 

 of readers, and has in the opinion of onef who was fully 

 competent to judge, done more than any other work in 

 existence, Gilbert White's " Natural History of Selborne " 

 alone excepted, to promote the study and pursuit of 

 ornithology in this country. 



This great popularity and widespread influence of 

 Bewick's " History of British Birds " arose solely from 

 the brilliance and fidelity of the wood-cuts, with which 

 he was able to illustrate that work. 



What Bewick and his fellow-author together entirely 

 failed to do with the pen, he alone most successfully 

 accomplished with the burin and the graver. Such was 

 Bewick's skill, and so wonderful his power of transferring 

 his impressions to paper, that his engravings of birds, 

 especially of those which he was enabled to draw^ from 

 life, or from freshly-killed specimens, remain even to this 

 day amongst the finest black and white illustrations of 

 the kind which we possess. Their effect therefore at 

 the time of their appearance, { and for many years after- 

 wards, may be easily understood, and this, coupled with 

 the fact of Bewick's general renown as an artist and with 

 the charm of the curious and often beautiful tail-pieces 

 with which he and his pupils adorned his work, made 



* '' Memoir of Thomas Bewick," p. 162. 



f Newton, "Diet, of Birds," Introd., p. 19. 



J Pennant's fourth edition of the " British Zoology," which apj^eared 

 in 1776, contained numerous plates of birds, but they were not very 

 successfvil. 



