NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 371 
history who is not a naturalist, so we have in our authoress a 
lover of birds who is clearly not a scientific ornithologist. With 
this we have no complaint to make, for under the present circum- 
stances we rather welcome the innovation, as the book makes no 
pretence to be anything but “an introductory acquaintance with 
one hundred and fifty birds commonly found in the gardens, 
meadows, and woods about our homes”; and systems are but a 
set of propositions to yet secure finality, while all should know 
their birds and their habits. We like the book for its purely 
American independence. Emerson has exclaimed for his country- 
men—‘ We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our 
own hands; we will speak our own minds.” And certainly our 
authoress has proved her emancipation on this point, for we find 
a perfectly new treatment of the subject. Thus after a rough 
sketch of ‘‘ Bird Families” we have “ Habitats of Birds,” in 
which species are grouped according to the positions they 
frequent, such as in the upper or lower parts of trees, among 
foliage and twigs or on conspicuous perches, birds of the woods 
or their edges, birds found near water, birds that sing on the 
wing, &c. Then the birds are enumerated according to their 
seasonal appearance; again, according to size; and lastly,—and 
this is the method of the book,—“‘ grouped according to colour.” 
It is thus abundantly clear that we are alone with the birds, and 
for the nonce we may well discard all our classifications if we are 
with any pleasure to read these pages. The treatment is, there- 
fore, an individual one; each bird is as unconnected and free from 
all systematic restraints as though a scientific ornithology had 
never spread its net of avian order. We pass from the Titmouse 
to the Jay; from the Nightjar to the Cuckoo. Colour is here the 
main plank of an alliance. 
If our English Jay is evil in the sight of the gamekeeper, the 
Canada Jay (Perisoreus canadensis) is answerable for a long list 
of offences. We read that, according to Mr. Hardy, there is 
scarcely anything ‘‘ which can be eaten that they will not take; 
and I had one steal all my candles, pulling them out endwise, 
one by one, from a piece of birch bark in which they were 
rolled; and another peck a large hole in a keg of castile soap. A 
duck, which I had picked and iaid down for a few minutes, had 
the entire breast eaten out by one or more of these birds. I have 
