NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 233 



This long placid life of continuous observation and industrious 

 notation, passed in what has been irreverently called " single 

 blessedness," and apparently without either romance or afflic- 

 tion, was a congenial atmosphere for the production of this little 

 masterpiece. We have now and then a glimpse of the dull 

 conformity of the inhabitants. "For more than a century past," 

 White reports to his Bishop, "there does not appear to have been 

 one Papist, or any Protestant Dissenter of any denomination." 

 We also read, "Selborne is not able to maintain a schoolmaster," 

 Our naturalist also abhorred the "dangerous doctrines of levellers 

 and republicans"; he writes, " I was born and bred a gentleman, 

 and hope I shall be allowed to die such"; while he explains to a 

 correspondent, that "the reason you have so many bad neighbours 

 is your nearness to a great factious manufacturing town." He 

 was as lovable as a Vicar of Wakefield, but not so foolish ; he 

 seems to have been really outside politics ; and we are told 

 nothing as to his theological views. He was probably a model 

 village priest, and a true friend to his parishioners. 



This completes our purview of these two charming volumes, 

 which must find a place with all Selbornian literature. They 

 give us the life of the author of the book we have so often read. 

 The portrait given as frontispiece is probably apocryphal, as we 

 are di^stinctly told elsewhere that " no portrait or sketch of any 

 kind was ever made of him." 



The Birds of Siberia : a Record of a Naturalist's Visits to the 



Valleys of the Petchora and Yenesei. By Henry Seebohm, 



F.L.S., &c. John Murray. 



Of all books of travel, those written by naturalists for the 



perusal of naturalists are perhaps the most charming. The 



cabinet ornithologist can in fancy see his dried skins as living 



birds, and experience the difference between these creatures in 



their native haunts, and their mummified remains in cabinet 



drawers. This book is a revised and amalgamated form of two 



previous publications by Mr. Seebohm, strangely entitled 'Siberia 



in Europe,' and ' Siberia in Asia,' both previously noticed at the 



time of their publication in these pages ; and, like " Japhet in 



search of a Father," this most interesting volume is still in want of 



a consistent title, the ' Birds of Siberia ' being, strictly, a misnomer. 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. V., June, I'JOl. t 



