130 THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 



British Oology ; being Illustrations of the eggs of the Birds of 

 Britain, accompanied by letter-press, descriptive of the haunts, food, &c. 

 of each species. By W. C. Hewitson, vols. I. and II., £2 2s. each. 



Mr. Hewitson has supplied a gap long and severely 

 felt by the Ornithologist, and supplied it in a 

 manner equally creditable to the author, and satis- 

 factory to his subscribers. The only representations 

 of eggs previously accessible to the British public 

 were those in Lewin's Birds of Britain, and these 

 were far from satisfactory to the scientific, indepen- 

 dent of the enormous price of the work. Mr. 

 Hewitson's elegant undertaking has another advan- 

 tage : in it are figured the principal, and most 

 striking varieties of each of the eggs, and these 

 sometimes vary so much as to render their identifica- 

 tion impossible, unless indeed the nest is seen also. 

 The letter-press, however, is not sufficiently full, — a 

 page is the least that ought to be devoted to the 

 necessary details, but we regret to say that even this 

 small portion is seldom given. The classification is 

 also a sad jumble. The author should have taken 

 Selby for his guide : to this arrangement he should 

 have adhered. He appears, however, to have vacil- 

 lated between Temmink's system, and that of Selby : 

 as a remarkable instance of this we may mention 

 that the Green Grosbeak, agreeably to the system of 

 the former, is retained in the genus Finch, while the 

 Haw Grosbeak is removed, in accordance with 

 Selby's system, to the Grosbeak genus. Such a 

 disregard of the principles of classification cannot 



