ADVERTISEMENT. 



It is a remarkable fact, that, while the perfection to which the Fine Arts have 

 attained in this country, is so great, as to be obvious in the embellishments of the 

 minor pamphlets which daily issue from the press, the delineations of Zoological 

 subjects in general remain uninfluenced by this universal improvement ; and, with 

 a few exceptions, present lamentable deficiencies in design, drawing, perspective, 

 and the most common principles of light and shade ; any one of which would 

 not be tolerated, even in the frontispiece to the most humble of our periodical 

 publications. 



The causes of this may be two-fold. Natural History in this country, until very 

 lately, has been little pursued, and still less estimated ; and, the publication of 

 works relating to it being attended with a great and inevitable expense, followed by 

 a comparatively small sale, the burden, in most instances, of engaging artists to 

 produce original designs has been avoided, by substituting those from books long 

 ago published ; and thus, we have reiterated copies of the mis-shapen figures given 

 by the writers of the last century, perpetuated with all their glaring faults, in the 

 hot-pressed volumes of the present day. 



The other cause may, perhaps, be attributed to an idea which many people 

 entertain, that only the slightest knowledge of drawing is necessary to represent a 

 Bird or a Shell ; and that, if the first is painfully copied in the exact position it 

 stands in the Museum, and, if the latter has its due proportion of colour, every 

 thing is done. But they forget, that, in Birds particularly, every family has a 

 decided peculiarity of form and habit, and that all originally possessed the gi-aceful- 

 ness of life and action, which does not remain with the preserved skin ; and, that, 

 to delineate a shell with a proper degree of accuracy, as complete a knowledge of 

 design, colouring, and chiaroscuro, is requisite, as in painting a cabinet picture of 

 still life. To those who may doubt this assertion, a simple reference to the un- 

 rivalled plates of M. de Ferrusac's work on Land Shells, now publishing in Paris, 

 will be sufficient ; while the exquisite designs of Barraband, for Le Vaillant's 

 " Parakeets," will evince a consummate knowledge of every principle necessary to 

 constitute a painter of first-rate eminence. 



It may be proper in this place to notice Martyn's Universal Conchologist, par- 

 ticularly as that costly book suggested the idea of the present work. The plates 

 have an imposing effect, and many of them are not only beautiful but faithful 

 representations ; the majority, however, though laboriously finished, betray an in- 



