Notices of New Books. 0947 



doubt that we shall still be the receptacle of those many interesting 

 anecdotes and facts with reference to the feathered race, no less than 

 in the other departments of the zoological world, which we have now for 

 seventeen years been the vehicle of conveying to the public; and we have 

 the greatest confidence thai our contributions will not fall off in this 

 respect, and that we have so far the good will of the promoters of the 

 * Ibis ' that they regard us with the same friendly feeling which we 

 entertain towards them ; and so we are disposed to feel an Egyptian 

 reverence for the " religious fowl," and hail its advent among us with 

 delight. 



And now we proceed to state the origin of this new work, which we 

 extract from the preface that its promoters may tell their own story in 

 their own words. It seems that " for some years past a few gentlemen 

 attached to the study of Ornithology, most of them more or less inti- 

 mately connected with the University of Cambridge, had been in the 

 habit of meeting together, once a year, or oftener, to exhibit to one 

 another the various objects of interest which had occurred to them, 

 and to talk over both former and future plans of adding to their know- 

 ledge of this branch of Natural History. These meetings being entirely 

 of a private and social nature, were found agreeable by those who 

 attended them, and gradually became more frequented. In the autumn 

 of 1857 the gathering of naturalists was greater than it had hitherto 

 been, and it appeared that among some of those present there was a 

 strong feeling that it would be advisable to establish a magazine 

 devoted solely to Ornithology." This feeling was distinctly stated not 

 to have been "prompted by any jealousy of periodicals already existing, 

 but by the belief that the number of persons who turned their attention 

 principally to this one branch of Zoology was at any rate sufficiently 

 great to justify an experiment, which in a neighbouring country, and 

 among a kindred nation, had succeeded so well." The scheme 

 suggested in 1857 was reconsidered and approved at the annual 

 meeting at Cambridge, in November, 1858, when, "after due consider- 

 ation, it was determined by those present that a Quarterly magazine 

 of General Ornithology should be established, that a limited sub- 

 scription should be entered into to provide a fund for that purpose, 

 and that the subscribers should form an ' Ornithological Union ' their 

 number at present not to exceed twenty." The names of these twenty 

 valiant knights who take the Ibis for their standard, and are ready to 

 do battle in defence of their ensign, are appended ; and it is but fair 

 to add that they embrace some of the very best of our British orni- 

 thologists, naturalists, moreover, of the field as well as of the closet. 



