NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 123 



agree. We may add to this, the absurd custom adopted in this country of naming our 

 birds after those in Europe, to which they are supposed to have some likeness, although, 

 in most respects, they are dissimilar. 



There are three modes in which we may obtain a knowledge of birds. — From personal 

 observation of these animals in their natural state — from preserved subjects in cabinets of 

 natural history — and from books. The first is undoubtedly preferable, so far as it goes ; 

 but it is necessarily limited by our range of travelling. The second supplies this defect, 

 but it is liable to this great objection ; the subjects are often not only imperfectly pre- 

 pared in the first instance, but generally decay and dissolve. In Cayenne, which has 

 furnished more subjects for the cabinets of European naturalists than any other country, 

 the birds are steeped in spirits for a long time, and dried by the heat of an oven. This 

 must undoubtedly, in many instances, sully the glossy beauty of their plumage, and give 

 them an appearance different from their natural one. Books must be resorted to in order 

 to complete and extend our knowledge ; but to place our sole reliance on them would be 

 as absurd as to attempt to attain a knowledge of mankind by the meditations of contem- 

 plative retirement. 



Our author has, with unparalleled industry, and singular sagacity of observation, sur- 

 mounted all the disadvantages which we have enumerated, and availed himself of all the 

 sources of information : every state in the union has witnessed his labours : on our Alpine 

 hills — in our most distant forests — on the borders of our rivers and lakes — on the shores 

 of the Atlantic, the footsteps of his enterprising industry may be seen. He first exa- 

 mined the feathered creation with his own eyes — he traced them in their most secluded 

 haunts — he watched their migrations — he observed their seasons of song, and of love, 

 and of incubation — he noticed their food, their instinct, and their habits. 



After having explored this source of information, he next had recourse to cabinets of 

 natural history, to the aviaries of amateurs, and to the observations of inquisitive and 

 ingenious men. The museum of Peale furnished him with various and extensive know- 

 ledge ; the methodical and comprehensive writings of Linnaeus; the extensive informa- 

 tion of Pennant, Brisson, Edwards, and Latham, and the splendid elucidations of Buffon, 

 were also familiar to him. 



Thus furnished with information, he has produced a work which excels all that pre- 

 cedes it, whether we have reference to the style and matter, or the drawings. It is in 

 vain to attempt to form ideas from written descriptions of animah, sufficiently distinct, 

 so as to distinguish them in all cases from each other : we must have recourse to the 

 delineations of the pencil, and to the preservations of the museum. The number of 

 species of birds has undoubtedly been greatly multiplied from the generality and conftt- 



