9342 Notices of Books. 
4 
be said: this is considered the guid pro quo, and author and reviewer 
are alike satisfied. It is impossible to read such critiques without 
perceiving that the writer is too slow to understand, and too indolent 
to study, the work on which he is expected to give an opinion; he has 
no choice but to consult his common-place book for a selection of 
platitudes carefully worded to conceal his ignorance, and he copies 
from a store-house of common-places a favourable or adverse platitude 
as the case may require. My own task is widely different: I always 
read the book, and always endeavour to show by the passages selected 
for citation the real status and capabilities of the writer; at the same 
time I never intentionally allow pointed merits or pointed defects to 
pass unnoticed. And now to my task. 
As regards systematic arrangement, the plan originally laid down is 
consistently carried out: whatever its advantages or disadvantages the 
author adheres to them in a conscientious manner that evinces no 
infirmity of purpose, and he thus preserves a unity of uniformity 
throughout that greatly assists the reader. This second volume also, like 
the first, contains numerous little errors of phraseology, orthography and 
punctuation, which the author will no doubt amend whenever a second 
edition shall be required. It will be idle to turn over 439 pages in 
search of these unimportant slips of the pen; the first page will illus- 
trate my meaning, without turning it over at all. The Timalide are 
characterized as “some with short and thick dclls, others with long 
and curved beaks; * * * we have here represented, as far as the 
beak is concerned, thrushes, shrikes, &c., * * * but their more 
characteristic features are strong legs and feet and a compressed bill ;” 
we are next told that “ their food is doth insects, fruits and grain,” and 
that “the sexes differ rarely if at all.” By the slightest attention to 
correcting the press all this might be avoided, greatly to the comfort 
of the student. 
The multiplication of genera, destined doubtless to continue until 
every species shall constitute a genus, though certainly the greatest 
stumbling-block ever laid in the pathway of Science, is not to be laid 
at our author’s door: he merely adopts the names invented by his 
predecessors. On this subject it is quite useless to recommend or 
advise : as well might one attempt to persuade cook or housemaid to 
renounce her hoops, as the ornithologist to abandon his multitudinous 
genera. Both are the diseases of youth or vanity, and will rage 
among the weak-minded until they become intolerable. 
In assigning an English name to every Indian bird Mr. Jerdon has 
certainly undertaken an Herculean labour, but I scarcely see the cut 
