The Zoologist — October, 1866. 425 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



* Charles Waterlon,his Home, Habits and Handitvork : Reminiscences 

 of an Iniimate and most confiding Personal Association for 

 nearly TJiirty VearsJ' By Richard Hobson, M.D. Post 8vo. 

 319 pp. letterpress, 16 plates. London: Whitaker. 1866. 



If an Editor receive a handsome volume to review, and if that volume 

 relate to a man to whom he, the Editor, has always looked up as a 

 proficient in the particular study which has been his own especial 

 choice, and who has just departed from oin* midst, full of years and 

 full of honour, it becomes a duty to handle such a book with a feeling 

 of respect almost amounting to reverence, and to suppress every com- 

 ment, indeed almost every thought, that could, in the least degree, 

 detract from the reputation of him whose character the book in ques- 

 tion professes to portray. 



That Dr. Hobson enjoyed the confidence and intimate acquaintance 

 of Mr. Waterton no one will presume to doubt, after reading the 

 declaration which immediately follows ; that Dr. Hobson was an 

 ardent admirer of the Squire is also manifest ; but there are certain 

 other conditions essential to the production of a good biography 

 which Dr. Hobson does not seem to possess : on this point, however, 

 the author and reviewer are at variance ; here is the author's testi- 

 monial to his own fitness for his self-imposed task ; a testimonial 

 which was perhaps superfluous, since it is little more than an amplifi- 

 cation of the very explanatory title. 



" The late Mr. Waterton's tastes in the science of Natural History, 

 and the more especially in consequence of his ardent and enthusiastic 

 partiality for ornithological pursuits, were so similar and naturally so 

 closely interwoven with my own, they so agreeably harmonized, par- 

 ticularly in the ornithological department of this system, and were 

 always worked out in such mutual familiar confidence for upwards of 

 a quarter of a century, that no surviving friend ever possessed similarly 

 favourable opportunities which I so long and so absolutely monopo- 

 lized, for acquiring an intimate and a positively detailed knowledge of 

 the Squire's every-day habits, of witnessing his marvellous manipulating 

 faculty, and of ascertaining his general and unreserved sentiments, 

 particularly on all subjects associated with any branch of practical 

 Natural History." — Preface, p. vii. 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. I. 3 I 



