REVIEWS OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
97 
to make way against the current by swimming, I have seen it move slowly along 
the surface in smooth water.’’ Moreover, the Coot, Gallinule, Grebe, and many 
other birds with feet either very partially or not at all webbed, swim with 
perfect ease. 
The Golden Oriole is unquestionably an English bird; but since we learn that 
the specimens “in the museum of the Edinburgh University, mentioned by Mr. 
Selby as having furnished subjects for his drawings, and as having been shot on 
the Pentland Hills, were, to my knowledge, brought from France by the late Mr. 
Wilson, Janitor of the University,” its title to being a Scotch species must for 
the present be cancelled. This circumstance affords an additional reason for not 
admitting species into a Fauna save on the most undoubted authority. 
Mr. M’G. adopts the generic name Tardus in preference to Merula , for the' 
Thrushes; but, although it would now cause needless confusion to recur to the 
appellations of the early writers, we cannot but deprecate the plan pursued by 
Linn^us of giving new names to genera and species already well designated by 
his predecessors. The names determined in the &'ysterna Naturce are so universally 
known and employed, that they cannot profitably be exchanged for those of 
preceding naturalists; but in future systematists thus offending cannot expect to 
be so leniently dealt with. 
After referring to the remarks of various writers in The Naturalist on the 
subject, the following statement occurs 
“ Thus much I have observed, not as a singular circumstance, nor even as one common to a few 
individuals, but as exhibited at all seasons, at the period of breeding, and in the middle of Winter, 
and by very many birds of the same species, that the male on perching, whether on a tree or on the 
ground, but especially' on the former, raises his tail, flutters, it might almost be said flaps, his 
wings, emits his chucking cry, and continues balancing himself, or hops along, repeating the notes, 
which, should he be alarmed, or in any way excited, are sometimes raised and prolonged so that a 
person fond of tracing affinities and analogies,,might naturally enough liken it to the crowing of 
a cock.” 
The author then proceeds to ridicule the “ modern doctrine of analogies,” but 
here it will not be profitable to follow him. Now the author of British Song- 
Birds has noticed the circumstance of the Blackbird crowing like a cock, because 
he is “fond of tracing’’Nature in all her varied haunts and recesses; and if 
analogies are to be found in Nature, no doubt he will be fond of tracing them. 
Mr. M’G. remarks (p. 38) that “few persons seek an opportunity of hearing 
the song of the Blackbird in the early morning before the first rays of the sun 
shoot across the Eastern sky; but many listen to it with delight in the quiet 
evenings of Spring and Summer, when the other songsters, except the Thrush or 
the Nightingale, are mute, and when its mellow notes come swelling on the ear, 
shedding a benign influence on every heart not entirely hardened by an habitual 
disregard of Nature. On the 1st of May, 1837, a Blackbird in the garden com- 
vol. v. —NO. xxxv. 
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