356 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Birds of Tennyson. By Watkin Watkins, B.A. Cantab. 



R. H. Porter. 



Was Tennyson an ornithologist ? In the usual or strict 

 sense of the term we may gladly say — no ; had he really deserved 

 that title he would probably not have been the great Victorian 

 poet. That he was a lover of birds, and a good observer of them 

 as he was of other natural creatures and objects, " goes without 

 saying" to anyone who is really conversant with the Tennysonian 

 literature. Mr. Watkins perhaps inclines to over-accentuate 

 Tennyson's ornithological standpoint. There is the naturalistic 

 poet and the poetic naturalist, but this is nearly all that 

 can be said. It is reported that Karl Schimper, in a small 

 piece of poetry, for the first time used the word Eiszeit (glacial 

 epoch). 



But is poetry expected to give us facts, or ideas ? Is the 

 poet to describe or to idealize a bird ? We incline to the latter 

 hypothesis. Of course a want of ordinary familiarity with birds 

 may cause a point to be altogether missed, as with Milton and 

 the Sky-Lark, in the well-known lines : — 



" Then to come, in spite of sorrow, 

 And at my window bid good morrow." 



On the Other hand, some of the highest flights in true poesy 

 have occurred in the idealization of animal life. In the great 

 Semitic epic, described by Tennyson himself as " the greatest 

 poem whether of ancient or modern times," Jahveh, in addressing 

 Job, speaks of the war-horse in well-known pregnant lines, one 

 of which has been rendered by Carlyle as " he laughs at the 

 shaking of the spear," words which, certainly, can by no twist be 

 made by any enthusiastic mammalogist to imply a knowledge of 

 the Equidce. When we enjoy a beautiful sonnet, such as Eugene 



