136 THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 



and pains-taking man,) hath since ushered in the 

 wooden — and Rennie, still more lately, the brazen 

 age ; but the duration of the latter will be brief ; 

 its days are numbered : for (prithee, forgive, O gentle 

 reader, the miserable pun,) the golden age of Orni- 

 thology, is at last, dawning upon us." We are sorry 

 to say that only 300 copies of this work are to be 

 published, and thus it will be rendered compara- 

 tively useless. It is to be completed in twenty parts, 

 containing about four hundred species. 



Ornithological Biography, or an account of the Habits of the Birds 

 of America, accompanied by descriptions of the objects represented in 

 the work entitled, the Birds of America, and interspersed with 

 delineations of American scenery and manners, By John James 

 Audubon, vols. I, II, & III. £\ 5s. each. 



Next to Wilson's work, that of Audubon is the 

 most wonderful specimen of what may be accom- 

 plished by talent, enthusiasm, and industry, unaided 

 by wealth or patronage, with which we are acquaint- 

 ed in the Ornithological world. Th.e author not 

 content with observing birds from his " study win- 

 dow," or, like placid White, those in the immediate 

 vicinity of his dwelling — roamed abroad far and 

 wide, exploring the forests, ransacking the marshes, 

 and forcing every part of mighty America* to yield 

 her feathered treasures, and display them before the 



* America, we use in the same sense as Audubon, namely for the 

 continent to the north of the Isthmus of Darien, the southern continent 

 being termed Columbia. 



