170 . THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
tinue the publication of a number on every successive 
Thursday. Purchasers of the Dictionary will not regret 
the postponement under these circumstances ; and the 
knowledge that the work will bo improved, reconciles us 
to the delay. 
We have a long array of new works before us, all re¬ 
quiring, because deserving, notice; and for fear that they 
should accumulate until they become a hopeless pile 
and labyrinth through which to pick and wind our way, 
let us address ourselves to the pleasant task, and write 
more fully the opinions we jotted down as we perused 
them. 
“ The History of British Birds,” by the Rev. F. 0. 
Morris, is one of a class which we always hail with 
extreme pleasure—original, accurate, and cheap—within 
the reach of every one, and a guide every one may rely 
upon. The first number (price only one shilling !) con¬ 
tains four portraits, most excellently drawn and coloured, 
with six times as many pages of biography, of four of 
the largest birds of prey which have been found wild in 
the British Islands. First is the Griffon Vulture, with 
his wary and expectant look, like some legatee we have 
seen, watching for death symptoms in him who has 
written the “ I give and bequeath.” But one such 
Vulture (we are speaking now of the bird, not of the 
legatee) has been caught in the British Islands. “ A 
single specimen,” says Mr. Morris, “ an adult bird, in a 
perfectly wild state, was captured by a youth, the latter 
end of the year 1843, on the rocks near Cork harbour, 
and was purchased for Lord Shannon, for half-a-crown, 
by whom, when it died, it was presented to the collection 
of the Dublin Zoological Society.” Next are a pair of 
Egyptian Vultures; and never, again, was there a better 
illustration of Lavater’s comparison of the animal with 
the human physiognomy, for these at once call to mind 
a vicious old man. A pair of them was seen in Somerset¬ 
shire, and one was shot in the October of 1825. The 
third portrait is of that “ compound of the characteristics 
of the vulture, the hawk, the predatory gull, and the 
raven,”— the Erne, or Sea Eagle. Lastly is given the 
Golden Eagle, which “ seems to have established a pre¬ 
scriptive right to the proud appellation of ‘ the king of 
the birds;’” as the tiger, in the corresponding predatory 
class among quadrupeds, has obtained that of “ royal.” 
“ It is, on the whole, extremely intractable; one, how¬ 
ever, is related to have been tamed at Fort William, near 
Belfast, by Richard Langtry, Esq., which would come 
at its master’s call; and another is mentioned by the 
late Bishop Stanley in his ‘ Familiar History of British 
Birds,’ as having been so thoroughly tamed as to have 
been left at perfect liberty, neither chained nor pinioned. 
Of this freedom it would often avail itself, and after an 
absence of two or three weeks would again return. It 
never attacked children; but on one occasion, it is 
supposed from its master having neglected to bring it 
its food, it assailed him with some violence. Of young 
pigs it would occasionally make a meal. After having 
been kept safely for ten or twelve years, it was unfor- 
[June 20. 
tunately killed by a savage mastiff dog. The battle was 
not witnessed, but it must have been long and well 
fought. The eagle was slain on the spot, but he did not 
die unrevenged, for his antagonist, very shortly after¬ 
wards, expired of its wounds. We hope to renew our 
notices of this work, for it is of interest equally to the 
naturalist and the mere reader for amusement. 
“ A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape 
Gardening, adapted to North America.” By A. J. 
Downing. This is just one of the books which a stay- 
at-home Englishman should read to brush away from 
his opinions that film of prejudice which invariably 
envelopes the innocent bigotries of the untravelled. 
Among these is an idea that no cultivated landscape 
scenery can equal that of “his own green isle;” and 
so far as the fresh verdure of its grass, and bits of rich, 
happy, home scenery are concerned, he is right—quite 
right. We have dwelt in many climes, and can testify 
that in no other land we have visited have we seen any¬ 
thing to compare for quiet beauty to 
“ The cottage homes of England, 
Which by thousands on her plains, 
Are smiling o’er the silvery brooks. 
And round the hamlet fanes.” 
But though there is none of such scenery in other lands, 
yet they have their exquisite beauties for which we 
should in vain look for parallels in England. Never 
shall we forget our first visit to the Botanic Garden of 
Calcutta, for there did we, for the first time, feel the force 
and the justice of Bishop’s Iieber’s exclamation—“ I 
now can realize what its was to dwell in the Garden of 
Eden.” Our climate, our vegetation, give no examples 
with which imagination can construct such grand masses 
of form, fragrance, and colour. So in America, we 
confess to having had our prejudices against her 
gardening; we have always thought that where there 
was no aristocracy of class, there, in gardening, would be 
no aristocratic habits and tastes. And so far it seems 
we were right; for Mr. Downing says—“In the United 
States, it is highly improbable that we shall ever witness 
such splendid examples of landscape gardens as those 
abroad. Here the rights of man are held equal; and if 
there are no enormous parks, and no class of men whose 
wealth is hereditary, there is, at least, what is more grati¬ 
fying, the almost entire absence of a very poor class; 
while we have, on the other hand, a large class of inde¬ 
pendent landholders, who are able to assemble around 
them, not only the useful and convenient, but the 
agreeable and beautiful in country life.” The result, 
we believe, is correctly foretold—“ in half a century 
more there will exist a greater number of beautiful villas 
and country seats of moderate extent in the Atlantic 
States, than in any country of Europe, England alono 
excepted." 
It is quite true that those States can never have the 
samo kind of beauties in their landscape gardening as 
we have in England; all must be on a larger and 
grander scale—giant forest-trees, inland seas instead of 
lakes, and rivers miles in width and thousands ot miles 
long, are features to which the garden designer has to 
adapt his plans and his vistas. Let us take as an example 
