Notices of New Books. 8425 



Notices of New Books. 



'An Introduction to the Trochilida or Family of Humming Birds.* 

 By John Gould, F.R.S., &c. London : 1861. 



In inviting the attention of my readers to Mr. Gould's * Monograph 

 of the Trochilidae' I am perfectly aware that I address myself to 

 many who are well acquainted with that gorgeous work, and who 

 desire no incentive to study its beauties. But there is a far larger 

 class who, totally unable to possess themselves of that expensive 

 luxury, may yet enjoy the minor volume, which, with the exception of 

 omitting the history of the species, is nearly a literal reprint of the 

 folio work, written to accompany the life-like illustrations ; and may 

 even be pleased to find, in the inexpensive pages of the ' Zoologist/ 

 extracts which give a faithful idea of the author's power of observation, 

 and aptitude in laying his conclusions clearly before his readers. 



In dealing with a subject so seductive as a history of humming birds 

 it is difficult indeed to resist the temptation to launch into a series of 

 grandiloquent paragraphs that would ill become the staid and sober 

 character of the ' Zoologist, which is not, and I trust never will be, a 

 " Romance of Natural History." It is difficult, indeed, to emancipate 

 oneself entirely from the influence of that enthusiastic admiration 

 which the author lavishes so lovingly on his " living gems," and it is 

 only by restricting myself most rigidly to the bibliographical aspect 

 of my theme that I can hope to escape the charge of sacrificing Science 

 to a love of display. The first mention of humming birds occurs in a 

 work intituled ' Les singularites de la France Antarctique,' in which 

 the names of Andre Thevet and Jean De Lery figure as the companions 

 of a Monsieur la Villegaignon, who, in 1555, appears to have made an 

 unsuccessful search for gold and an equally unsuccessful attempt to 

 found a colony in America, a new world to which our neighbours 

 modestly assigned the name of " Antarctic France." After this both 

 incidental and detailed notices of humming birds are numerous and 

 frequent ; Piso, Ximenez, Acosta, Gomara, Marcgrave, Garcilasso, 

 Dutertre, Sloane, Catesby, Edwards, Brown, Labat, Plumier, Feuillee, 

 Rochefort, Humboldt, D'Orbigny, Schomburgk, Tschudi, Castelnau, 

 Burmeister, Gosse, and many others, have contributed to the general 

 stock of knowledge. But the works in which there is a more sys- 

 tematic account of these birds are by Linneus, Latham, Audebert, 

 Vieillot, Lesson, Bonaparte, Gray, Illiger, De Blainville, Reichenbach, 

 VOL. XXI. Q 



