3074 Birds. 



which have been brought forward over and over, the peculiar form 

 and tinge of his own descriptive faculties.* In natural history, more- 



* Among the exceptions to these remarks must be reckoned Mr. Selby's work on 

 British Ornithology. He is without doubt an original and painstaking observer ; and 

 has contributed many important particulars in regard to the habits and appearances 

 of our native birds which were previously unknown. As a philosophical naturalist, 

 his merits are of a very high order. To him, in a great measure, would the praise 

 appear to belong of being one of the most influential in having given to natural his- 

 tory, especially ornithology, that fresh and more rational impulse which began per- 

 haps about thirty years ago ; and which since that time has been every year advancing 

 with accelerated speed and with corresponding success. As an artist, also, his labours 

 have been brilliant and persevering. He and Sir William Jardine have been the 

 means in this respect of bringing more numerous and more varied representations of 

 new, rare, and interesting birds before the public, than perhaps any other two indivi- 

 duals of the present day. 



In the preface to his first volume, Mr. Selby, when speaking of style, has the fol- 

 lowing remark : " I have endeavoured, as far as lay in my power, to unite conciseness 

 and perspicuity, with that plain didactic manner in which I conceive all works on 

 scientific subjects should be written." On such a point, I would be understood to 

 differ from so eminent an authority with much of diffidence, and with a feeling that I 

 am in all probability in the wrong. I cannot help thinking, however, that the cha- 

 racter of style which is here recommended, although imperatively called for in works 

 of severe and demonstrative science, ought not to be rigorously insisted upon, nor to 

 be regarded as the only one which is proper, in publications having for their object 

 the various branches of natural history. Is it not possible, in productions of this de- 

 scription, to be eloquent, and it may be even poetical, and at the same time correct 

 and strictly accurate in the description of character, instincts and habits ? May not 

 the precision of science and the colouring of feeling occupy each their appropriate 

 place, without the one interfering with the other, but on the contrary, like the masses 

 of light and shade in a painting, mutually contributing to the beauty, the harmony, 

 and the effect of the whole ? Is it not in the happy intermixture of these opposite 

 qualities that the irresistible charm principally lies which has made the writings of 

 Wilson, of Audubon, and of others of a kindred character, to be so greatly sought 

 after, and to be devoured with so insatiable avidity by their numerous and constantly 

 increasing readers ? 



The name of Sir William Jardine has been casually mentioned ; and no one who 

 is familiar with his writings will hesitate for a moment in allowing that he is no mere 

 compiler, but a most diligent, enthusiastic, and successful observer. He is not inat- 

 tentive to the respective merits of systems ; to anatomical details ; to the adaptation 

 in structure of means to ends, and to those interesting links by which groups glide, 

 as it were, imperceptibly into each other. But he is a sportsman as well as a natu- 

 ralist; and in the former capacity he has opportunities, which he seems never to neg- 

 lect, of watching and of noting the habits and the movements of the feathered and 

 also of the finny tribes. He has, moreover, an eye for the beauties of Nature. His 

 descriptions are thus, generally speaking, not only accurate and original, but they are 

 likewise fresh, vivid, and not unfrequently with a tinge of poetry. As examples of 

 what has been said, may be mentioned the respective accounts in his ' History of 



