S04 | Meturalisi's Montily Report. - fOct. ly 
attributed, if we have net been misinformed, all the scientific part ct the present enlarged edi< 
tion. We do/not wish to say any thing in disparagement of the Botanic«1 knowledge o; Mr. 
Aiton, we believe that he may have made as great progress in the acquirement of the science 
as his horticultural duties (more extensive we understand than those of his father;) allowed. 
hiny to attains but whilst ir is so notorious that all the science of the.work is due to the 
Jabours of another man, we cannot perceive the justice or policy of keeping his name out of 
the view of the public. Should it be argued that Mr. Dryander chose to decline having his 
name appear as the author of a work, which however superior as the catalogue of a garden, may 
be supposed to be hardly adequate to his established reputation as a naturalist, yet one would 
suppose, that some regret would have been expressed at net being permitted to mention the 
mame of the botanist te whose abilities so much was due. 
Useful and scientific as this work must appeary beyend any of the kind since the Hortus 
Cliffortianus of Linnzus, we do not doubt but that it would have been still much more perfect 
had the name of the real author been seen in the title-page... Aman is not likely to take 
tle same pains when he writes for another as when Ke feels his own reputation involved in 
che success. Mauch will be slurred over that required laborious investigation to bring it to. 
that state of perfection which would satisfy the learned author, if he considered his fame at 
all at stake. ; 
The plan of the work has been to follow the systematic arrangement as laid down in Wille 
denow’s edition of the Species Plantarum, and in general no synonym is repeated that has been 
quoted by him, unless as authority for the time in which the plant had been cultivated, ex- 
cept in a few instances where Willdenow may have quated any ef our modern periodical 
publications, all of which are professedly referred to, both for the sake ‘* of the Enzlish 
xeader, for whose use the catalogue has 5een principally compiled, and to show to those fo- 
-feigners into whose hands it may fall, that Englishmen have not of late years been inattentive” 
to the advancement of their favourire study.” j 
The work is professediy a compilation, but a compilation made under the eye of a master 
witha head and hand capable of supplying the desiderata, and knowing where to make an 
election. Thus, where any capable botanist has studied any particular branch of the science, 
his arrangement and characters have been in general adopted, so at the very outset of the 
work, in the class monandria and order monogynia, which contain the natural order of the 
Scitamineé, the. dissertation cn this order by the learned Mr. Roscoz of Liverpool, published in 
the cighth volume of the Transactions of the Linnzan Society, seems to be pretty generally 
followed. ape ‘ i | 
We purpose, in.a future. Report, to give a further account of the novel matter contained ia 
this valuable volume. 
: WATURALIST’S MONTHLY REPORT. : 
AUGUST. 
Reaping Mountb. 
Pour'd from the villages a numerous train’ ; 
Now spreads o’er ali the fields. In form’'d array 
: “The reapers move, nor shrink for heat or toil: 2 
N nearly every day from the ist to the 16th of August, we have had rain; and from the 
16th tothe end of the month, the finest harvest weather imaginable. ~ In the night of | 
the 2d, there were several heavy showers ; and inthe night of the 12th, a tremendous storm 
ind and rain. : 
paces ee quarters of the wind, have been north and west. It was in the south-west 
on the 33, 4:h} 6th, 7th, 10th, 11th, 22d, 26th, and 29th. There were strong gales on 
the 4th, 8th, Lith, 12th, and 15th. ; 
In the evening of the 24th, there was a heavy fog; and in that of the 29th, we had thun- 
der. Since the fine weather commenced, we have had lightning almost every night. During 
the latter fifteen days of the month, the weather has been very hot. bee 
The fights of cross=bills, which have visited England this summer, are very remarkable. 
Many of these birds have been shot, and several caught in this neighbourhood. The keeper 
of a. public-house, who has some apple-trees in his garden, missed, one morning, a great part 
of his fruit, and suppesed that his garden had been robbed. He however soon found that a 
flock of cross-bills; which had their quarters in an adjacent plantation of fir trees, had been 
the depredators. By means of limed stl ks, he caught some of them, and has them now in 
cages, where they seem perfectly tame. These birds are chiefly inhabitants of the forests of 
the northern parts of Europe, and seldom visit our island. They are-said to feed chiefly on 
‘rhe seeds of the fir tree, which they thus extract from the husk. ‘They bring into contact — 
the extremities of their crossed beak, and then inserting it into the cavity where the seed is 
cevosited, suddenly cross it again ; and in so.dcing, the seed is forced out. “sie ‘ say 
+ ae : ge Acie 3 ugusé 
“4 5 ‘ 
® - 
5 
