188 Mr Gould's Monograph of the 
hundred species represented on eighty plates, accompanied with short 
descriptions by N. A. Vigors, Esq. Success in this work, and the 
wishes of several friends, induced Mr Gould to undertake another of 
greater magnitude, and requiring more labour to collect the species 
and information regarding them, " The Birds of Europe." The first 
seventeen numbers of this "ouvrage de luxe" have appeared; it con- 
tinues with regularity, and many of the continental ornithologists are 
lending their aid to procure the rarer European birds, and to render 
the undertaking complete, and when it approaches the conclusion we 
shall devote a few pages to its examination. 
Nearly at the same time with this last mentioned work, Mr Gould 
published the first part of his " Monograph of the Ramphastidse," 
arid about twelve months after, the commencement of a similar his- 
tory of the " Trogonidce." The last has reached its second number, 
and is a work of illustrations exquisitely finished ; the former is com- 
pleted in three parts, and contains figures of all the species which 
are known to ornithologists at the present time. The size of all 
these works is folio, the plates are entirely lithographic, drawn most- 
ly by Mrs Gould, and at times when the press of matter is too great, 
by Mr Lear. With few exceptions, they are figures of great beauty, 
are delineated with correctness, and, as illustrated works in or- 
nithology, they will perhaps stand at the head of any that are now 
in progress. We shall now examine in more detail that which we 
have noted at the head of this article. 
The Ramphastidae, taken as a family among the Scansores, will 
contain several more forms than those to which Mr Gould has de- 
voted his present monograph, which might with more propriety be 
entitled an account of the Linnaean genus Ramphastos. It is confined 
to the illustration of Ramphasios, as now restricted by ornithologists, 
and to Pteroglossus, as separated from it by Illiger. These birds, 
though of clumsy and inelegant form, presented many enticing points 
for the monographist. They were yet known to inhabit only the 
forests of tropical America, almost unexplored, except upon the 
coast or the margins of some of the great rivers, and extremely diffi- 
cult of access. Except in the works of Azara, and previous to the 
expeditions of the German naturalists to the Brazils, little was known 
of their manners, farther than that they frequented the deepest and 
most secluded thickets, their habits were only seen by the native 
hunters who had been dispatched on an errand which might have 
proved fatal to the European, and the dried spoils only reached the 
collections of this country. A great similarity in the colours of the 
