ornithologist's text-book. 73 



After this extract, we consider it quite unneces- 

 sary to add anything more ; we will, however, 

 give our readers one more short quotation, to show 

 that, though Mudie's descriptions are infinitely 

 fuller and more accurate than those of preceding 

 authors, he has been obliged to rein himself in, in 

 most of them. After about seven closely printed 

 pages on the Golden Eagle — Lewin gives about 

 one -fourteenth of this quantity — he says : — " But 

 I must leave her to her haunts, apologizing to the 

 reader, that I am obliged to confine my notice to 

 a few desultory pages, which is as much out of 

 Nature as cooping up the living bird in a cage. 

 In Nature, the Eagle requires a mountain, and if 

 ever it be my good fortune to afford her a volume 

 of description, she shall spread her wings." — Vol. 

 I, p. 122. 



We understand that a second edition of the 

 Feathered Tribes is now in preparation. 



Natural History of Birds, by R. Mudie. Orr 

 and Smith, London. 1834. 18mo. 4s. 6d. pp. 408. 



This is, beyond all question, the cheapest book 

 that ever issued from the British press. We have 

 408 closely printed pages for four shillings and 

 sixpence, besides a great number of wood-cuts, 

 representing birds, and parts of birds, and these 

 are always well executed The book is a kind of 

 treatise on the physiology of birds, with remarks 

 on their classification. It originally appeared 

 under the article "bird" in Partington's British 

 Cyclopedia, most of the ornithological articles in 

 this work being by Mudie.* The Natural History 

 of Birds should be in the hands of every one, the 



* We understand, also, that several of them are from the pen of 

 our talented friend, Mr. Blyth. 



G 



