AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



i3i; 



monkeys. The centre of the rooms is filled with cases of 

 Mollusca of the rarest and most beautiful species, both fossil 

 and recent; the animals preserved in spirits occupy some of 

 the lower shelves; the rest are filled with corallines and 

 sponges; the cases above are lined with insects. 



Descending the staircase, we pass through those mighty 

 ruins of former ages, the fossils, chiefly collected by Baron 

 Cuvier; after which come the rocks and minerals. The 

 reptiles, which cover the sides and ceilings of the next 

 apartment, have lately been much extended; and the for- 

 mer library having been appropriated to ichthyology, the 

 bookshavebeen moved to the rooms of a deceased professor, 

 and their place is now wholly occupied by fishes. Below 

 these are three entirely new rooms, formed by turning the 

 porter of the gate in the Rue du Jardin du Roi out of his 

 habitation, and converting that and some lecture rooms into 

 agallery for the heavier quadrupeds, such as elephants, hip- 

 popotami, &c. on the ground floor. 



The galleries of botanj' are scarcely big enough to con- 

 tain the piles of dried plants brought home by the naturalists 

 of the expeditions of discovery; and the collection of woods 

 and dried seeds bids fair verj? soon to exceed the limits 

 assigned to it. The School of Botany, so beautifully ar- 

 ranged according to the natural system, is three times as 

 large as it was six years back. The wet summer has much 

 injured the parterres; still, however, the daturas have been 

 placed outside the green-houses; the salvias, amounting to 

 large shrubs, were still in blossom; and the flower-garden, 

 the garden of naturalization, and the medicinal parterres, 

 were all blooming. In short, with the exception of living 

 Carnivora, every department of this wonderful establish- 

 ment has made the most astonishing progress, even within 

 the last few years, and is now so perfect that we almost 

 wish the treasures of nature exhausted, for fear the least 

 alteration for the reception of additions should be detri- 

 mental to its beauty. 



I cannot suppose it po_ssible for an English amateur of 

 natural history to turn from this little world of science and 

 wonder without a sigh of regret — without dwelling on the 

 causes, whatever they may be, which keep his own country 

 in such deep arrears in this respect. That England, which 

 perfects not only her ov\rn undertakings, but the under- 

 takings of other nations, with a hundred fold the opportu- 

 nity in her commercial connections, which preclude even 

 the hecessitj' of sending our travellers on purpose — that 

 England should be thus outdone by her less enterprising 

 neighbour, is a fact at which I cannot help grieving, but 

 which I do not presume to investigate. I am. Sir, &c. 



S. Lee. 

 27 Burton Street, Nov. 19. 



LI 



ROBIN. 



TURDUS MIGRATORIUS. 



[Plate XII.] 



Linn. Syst. i, p. 292, 6. — Tur'dus Canadensis, Briss. 

 II, p. 225, 9. — La Litorne de Canada, Buff, hi, p. 

 307. — Grive de Canada, PL Enl. 556, 1. — Fieldfare 

 of Carolina, Cat. Car. 1,29. — Bed-hreasted Thrush, 

 Arct. Zool. II, No. 196. — Lath. Sy7i. ii,p. 26. — Bar- 

 tram, p. 290. — J. Doughty's collection. 



This well known bird being familiar to almost every 

 body, will require but a short description. It measures 

 nine inches and a half in length; the bill is strong, an inch 

 long, and of a full yellow, though sometimes black, or 

 dusky near the tip of the upper mandible; the head, back 

 of the neck, and tail is black; the back and rump, an ash 

 colour; the wings are black edged with light ash; the inner 

 tips of the two exterior tail feathers are white; three small 

 spots of white border the eye; the throat and upper part of 

 the breast is black, the former streaked with white; the 

 whole of the rest of the breast, down as far as the thighs, is 

 of a dark orange; belly and vent white, slightly waved 

 with dusky ash; legs dark brown; claws black and strong. 

 The colours of the female are more of the light ash, less 

 deepened with black; and the orange on the breast is much 

 paler and more broadly skirted with white. The name of 

 this bird bespeaks him a bird of passage, as are all the dif- 

 fei'ent species of Thrushes we have; but the one we are 

 now describing being more unsettled, and continually 

 roving about from one region to another, during fall and 

 winter, seems particularly entitled to the appellation. 

 Scarce a winter passes but innumerable thousands of them 

 are seen in the lower parts of the whole Atlantic States, 

 from New Hampshire to Carolina, particularly in the 

 neighbourhood of our towns; and from the circumstance of 

 their leaving, during that season, the country to the north- 

 west of the great range of the Alleghany, from Marjdand 

 northward, it would appear that they not only migrate 

 from north to south, but from west to east, to avoid the 

 deep snows that generally prevail on these high regions for 

 at least four months in the year. 



The Robin builds a large nest, often on an apple tree, 

 plasters it in the inside with mud, and lines it with hay or 

 fine grass. The female lays five eggs of a beautiful sea 

 green. Their principle food is berries, worms and cater- 

 pillars. Of the first he prefers those of the sour gum 

 [Nyssa sylvalica.) So fond are they of Gum berries, that 

 wherever there is one of these trees covered with fruit, and 



