166 Notice of British Naturalists. 



points appeared necessary to be attended to. One was to ascer- 

 tain, as far as practicable, the additions which had been made, 

 of late years, to our list of British animals. * * * The other 

 important point, was to take care that the descriptions should, as 

 far as possible, be obtained from the animals themselves, and 

 nothing inserted upon the credit of other writers, which was capa- 

 ble of being verified by personal observation. The day is forever 

 gone by, in which unscientific compilations will be thought to be 

 of any service to Zoology ; so far from advancing its progress, it 

 may be said unhesitatingly, that they tend only to retard it." 



Hitherto, however much the birds themselves might have been 

 attended to, their eggs and nidification, had been in a great meas- 

 ure neglected. Beautiful as are the former, and wonderful in 

 their construction as are the nests ; no one had as yet thought 

 this branch worthy of separate attention. A French writer had, 

 we believe, attempted a work, on this portion of the natural his- 

 tory of his own country ; but had never completed it ; and it was 

 left to Mr. William Hewitson, to present the public, with the 

 first original and well executed book, on this interesting topic. 

 About 1831, he began to publish by subscription, in numbers, 

 " British Oology, being illustrations of the eggs of British 

 hirds,'^ &c. It is in octavo, and consists of colored lithographic 

 plates of the eggs, each one the natural size, and colored with 

 great fidelity. A short description of the nest and eggs, accom- 

 panies each plate. To draw an egg, so that on paper it may ap- 

 pear natural, is no easy task, but being an excellent artist, he has 

 accomplished his labors with" great credit. The work now fin- 

 ished, is in three thin volumes, and contains all the British eggs, 

 with the exception of a few of the very rarest. 



Mr. Hewitson, who is still a young man, is descended from an 

 old and highly respectable family in Newcastle upon Tyne. 

 When a mere child he manifested a strong taste for drawing, and 

 was fond of copying the figures and vignettes in Bewick's works. 

 To these books, thus early put into his hands, he owes, we believe, 

 his fondness for this science. He had the advantage of a liberal 

 education, and became a civil engineer. Ashe grew up, his taste 

 for drawing connected with natural history increased, and all his 

 leisure hours he spent in the fields and woods. Like most boys 

 he was fond of taking birds' nests ; but unlike most boys, he be- 

 came intimately acquainted with the species and varieties, and he 



