not observed in the British Isles.’ 
97 
look ,—Aquila pennata, yes, here it is; after all, it is right : my 
fears, and not the dealer deceived me/’ This is the state of the 
case; and can anything be more illogical ? M. Moquin-Tandon 
is, we are afraid, by no means singular. There are many collect¬ 
ors in this country, who yearly spend large sums in buying eggs 
from dealers—utterly un-identified, or with (since identification of 
eggs has lately become somewhat fashionable) a plausible history, 
but one that will not bear investigation. Little do they know 
how the four quarters of the globe have been ransacked, how 
varieties have been selected from a large series of specimens 
belonging to allied, or, it may be, utterly remote forms, because 
they resemble the figures that have been published of the egg for 
which there is a demand in the market. They are of no author¬ 
ity whatever; their faces are their fortune, and like, we fear, some 
other pretty faces, are without character, and may lead those that 
seek them into endless trouble. It is this example of M. Moquin- 
Tandon's mode of identifying eggs which compelled us, while 
treating of the Bald Eagle, to pass over the evidence in favour of 
its European claims adduced by Mr. Bree from supposed eggs of 
that bird, said to have been brought from the North of Europe 
by Prince Napoleon's expedition. It would be a waste of time 
to inquire whether they were rightly named, or from what country 
they were obtained—whether from Iceland, where no one has even 
said that the Bald Eagle occurs; from Norway, where no one now 
believes that it ever existed; or from Spitzbergen, innocent of all 
eagles, whether French or American. We regret to see our author 
avail himself of such an argument. 
And now one word more and we have done. To find fault 
is never an agreeable task, and never so disagreeable as when the 
person censured is, in the main, of the same way of thinking as 
oneself. Still less is the office of a reviewer an enviable one,— 
a single sentence, nay, a word, may breed a hostile spirit that 
nothing can appease. And least of all should we desire to pro¬ 
voke such an enmity among ornithologists, when writing in the 
first number of a new Journal, which can only be continued by 
the favour they may accord it. It is simply because we be¬ 
lieve that Mr. Bree's work will have a deservedly wide sale among 
many who have had hitherto little or no knowledge of European 
VOL. i. 
H 
