ornithologist's text-book. 17 



must be entirely re-written, in order to purge it of 

 its numerous errors. Vol. IV is devoted to Orni- 

 thology. 



Harmonia Ruralis, or Natural History of British 

 Song Birds, by James Bolton, folio. 1794. 



The descriptions in this work are tolerably accu- 

 rate, but the figures — drawn and coloured from 

 Nature, by the author — are of little value. The 

 work is of no use at the present day. 



Birds of Great Britain, by W. Lewin, F.L.S. 

 8 vols. 4to. 1795—1801. Coloured plates by the 

 author. 



This is a useful and even a valuable work, as it is 

 the only one with which we are acquainted in which 

 a coloured figure of every British bird is given ; 

 these are " engraved from the subjects themselves," 

 and are generally accurate, especially when we 

 consider that the work appeared forty years ago. 

 A specimen of the egg of each species is also figured, 

 but these are often inexact and badly coloured. — 

 The system is the Linnsean, and the descriptions, 

 which are short and accurate, are written on one 

 side of the page in French, and on the other in 

 English. The chief fault of the figures is, that they 

 are generally too highly coloured, and that a single 

 species is sometimes figured two or three times over, 

 under different names. The frontispiece to the first 

 volume is a curious variety of Varus major, shot in 

 Kent, with the mandibles of the bill crossed, as in 

 the Crossbills fCrucirostra, Meyer); the distribu- 

 tion of the colours is the same as in ordinary indi- 

 viduals, but the tints are much duller. A friend 

 B 3 



