REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS* 
383 
effect of creating a prejudice which precludes all cool investigation, and at once 
converts the botanical student into a flaming partizan. 
Believe me, 
Yours very truly, 
Dryadville Cottage , near Worcester , Edwin Lees. 
May 4, 1838. 
REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
The Natural History of Quadrupeds and Whales ; being the Article “ Mam¬ 
malia,” from the Seventh Edition of the “ Encyclopaedia Brit annica.” With above 
150 illustrations. By James Wilson, F.B.S.E., M.W.S., &c. Edinburgh: A. 
and C. Black; Simpkin and Co ., London; John Cumming , Dublin. 1837. 4to. 
pp. 120. 
In our last number (p. 332) we reviewed, at some length, Professor Phillips's 
geological treatise, as republished from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. We here 
have a reprint of another article from the same valuable work, from the pen of a 
well-known zoologist. Our retrospect of the volume must be as rapid as the 
author’s review of the animal kingdom, but the work is too excellent and too 
carefully written to be discharged with a mere passing notice of general com¬ 
mendation. 
After furnishing a synopsis of a few of the more important mammalogical 
systems, our author enters fairly upon his subject, with the arrangement of Cuvier. 
In stating (p. 86), as a general characteristic of the Mammalia, that their colour 
is lighter underneath than above, it is by no means intended to affirm, we 
presume, that the circumstance is confined to the class, or even to the animal 
kingdom. The same may be said of the leaves of plants, which are always 
darkest on the side most fully exposed to the light. Whether the same cause 
operates in animals to produce a similar effect, must be considered very doubtful. 
At p. 86 it is stated, that the young of Mammalia are frequently more elegantly 
attired than adults, which is perfectly true; but the rule placed in juxta-position, 
that “ the early plumage of birds is always more dingy and obscure than that of 
adults,” is not without its exceptions. The young of some Woodpeckers, for 
instance, have bright scarlet feathers in parts where the adults are perfectly 
destitute of them. ‘‘Melanism [black varieties] is more frequent in warm 
countries, albinism [white varieties] in cold ones, and the former is much rarer 
than the latter.” Doubtless ; although we have seen whole parks stocked with 
black Babbits in England, and have known Coalhoods (or “ Bullfinches”) and 
Goldwings (“ Goldfinches”) turn black in a temperate climate, from feeding too 
profusely on a heating diet. It seems most probable that the seasonal changes 
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