188 Mr Gould's Monograph oftlte 



hundred species represented on eighty plates, accompanied with short 

 descriptions hy N. A. Vigors, Esq. Success in this work, and the 

 wishes of several friends, induced Mr Gould to undertake another of 

 greater magnitude, and requiring more lahour to collect the species 

 and information regarding them, " The Birds of Europe." The first 

 seventeen numbers of this "ouvrage de luxe" have appeared; it con- 

 tinues with regularity, and many of the continental ornithologists are 

 lending their aid to procure the rarer European birds, and to render 

 the undertaking complete, and when it approaches the conclusion we 

 shall devote a few pages to its examination. 



Nearly at the same time with this last mentioned work, Mr Gould 

 published the first part of his " Monograph of the Ramphastidae," 

 and about twelve months after, the commencement of a similar his- 

 tory of the " Trogonidx-' The last has reached its second number, 

 and is a work of illustrations exquisitely finished ; the former is com- 

 pleted in three parts, and contains figures of all the species which 

 are known to ornithologists at the present time. The size of all 

 these works is folio, the plates are entirely lithographic, drawn most- 

 ly by Mrs Gould, and at times when the press of matter is too great, 

 by Mr Lear. With few exceptions, they are figures of great beauty, 

 are delineated with correctness, and, as illustrated works in or- 

 nithology, they will perhaps stand at the head of any that are now 

 in progress. We shall now examine in more detail that which we 

 have noted at the head of this article. 



The Ramphastidce, taken as a family among the Scansores, will 

 contain several more forms than those to which Mr Gould has de- 

 voted his present monograph, which might with more propriety be 

 entitled an account of the Linnsean genus Ramphastos. It is confined 

 to the illustration of Ramphastos, as now restricted by ornithologists, 

 and to Pteroglossus, as separated from it by Illiger. These birds, 

 though of clumsy and inelegant form, presented many enticing points 

 for the monographist. They were yet known to inhabit only the 

 forests of tropical America, almost unexplored, except upon the 

 coast or the margins of some of the great rivers, and extremely diffi- 

 cult of access. Except in the works of Azara, and previous to the 

 expeditions of the German naturalists to the Brazils, little was known 

 of their manners, farther than that they frequented the deepest and 

 most secluded thickets, their habits were only seen by the native 

 hunters who had been dispatched on an errand which might have 

 proved fatal to the European, and the dried spoils only reached the 

 collections of this country. A great similarity in the colours of the 



