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only to be observed by the out-door naturalist, who will bury himself for hours in the depths of the quiet woods, near some favourite owl-tree. If he is so fortunate as to see the courtship on some warm, gloomy, spring day, whose stillness is only broken by the pattering of the shower, or the "minute drops" that fall from the moss-grown trees, he will be well repaid for his watching by the solemnization. The Hudibrastic air with which the lover approaches, making lowly congés, as if to

Honour the shadow of the shoe-tie"

of the prim Quaker-like figure that receives all these humilities with the demure starched demeanour of one of Richardson's heroines-only now and then slowly turning her head towards the worshipper when she thinks she is not observed, but instantly turning it back when she thinks she is→→ and the occasional prudish snap of her bill, when she is apprehensive that he is going to be rude-make a scene truly edifying.'-p. 102.

A brief but accurate account is given of each of our native species of owl, and of occasional visitors. The barn or white owl (Strix flammea), which is the true screech-owl,' claims the first notice; next comes the tawny or ivy owl (Surnium aluco) ; then the long-eared owl (Otus vulgaris); and, lastly, the shorteared owl, better known perhaps as the fern owl (Otus palustris), which appears to be the only regularly migratory British owl. The organization of the nocturnal bird of prey, and its relations to the habits and mode of life, with the principal incidents in the economy of each of the British species, are well elucidated; and the history of the race, gloomy and foreboding at its commencement, gradually brightens to culminate in the following incident, depicted with the truth and reality of a Dutch picture. In reference to the migratory species, he says

In consequence of the general arrival of these birds in the southern parts of Britain with the first fair October winds, they are called wood cock owls-an appellation branded on the memory of more than one luckless would-be sportsman. From some turnip-field hard by a plantation, or a tuft of rushes close to a copse on a moist hill-side, up springs a russet-plumaged bird, and is in the cover in a moment. The eager shooter" catches a glintse on 'in," as an old keeper used to say, through the trees. Bang goes the gun. 66 "That's the first cock of the season!" exclaims he, exultingly. Up comes John, who has been sent ostensibly to attend him, but really to take care of him :-"I'm sure he's down,"-pointing to the cover, as many are apt to say when they shoot at a cock, without being able to produce the body-"Well, let's look, sir: where did a drop?" "There, just by that holly." In they go, retriever and all. "There he lies," cries the delighted shot, loading his gun triumphantly in measureless content; dead as Harry the Eighth. I knew he was down; there, just where I said he was, close by that mossy stump. Can't you see?"-" Iss, sir, I sees well enough, but I don't like the looks on 'in. His head's a trifle too big, and a do, lie too flat on his face."-"Pick up the cock, I say," rejoins our hero,

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somewhat nettled. "I can't do that, sir," says John, lifting a fine specimen of Otus palustris, and holding it up to the blank-looking cockney, amid the ill-suppressed laughter of those confounded fellows who attend to mark not only the game, but the number of shots that are missed, on their abominable notched sticks.-" Never mind, sir," adds the comforter John, "if t'ant a cock, a did kip company wi' em; and a's curous like, and since you ha'nt killed nothen else to-day, I'd bag un, if I was you: he'll look uncommon well in a glass case.'

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-p. 107.

Leaving the parrots' to speak for themselves, which they do through a most entertaining chapter, we come next to a bird of more immediate and general interest, especially at the present festive season. Long and grave has been the discussion as to when and whence the turkey was first brought into Europe.

'As for the often-repeated couplet given by Baker

"Turkeys, carps, hoppes, piccarel, and beer,
Came into England all in one year "-

that is about the fifteenth of Henry VIII. (1524), there is no reliance
to be placed upon it, as far at least as the fish is concerned; for Dame
Juliana Berners, prioress of Sopewell, mentions in the Boke of St.
Alban's, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496, the carp as a "deyn-
tous fisshe;" and the price of pike or pickerel was the subject of legal
regulation in the time of our first Edward. . . . Oviedo, in 1526, de-
scribes the turkey well, as a kind of peacock of New Spain which had
been carried over to the islands and the Spanish Main, and was about
the houses of the Christian inhabitants, so that it is evident that, when
Oviedo wrote, the bird had been domesticated. Heresbach states that
they were brought into Germany about 1530, and Barnaby Googe (1614)
declares that those outlandish birds called ginny-cocks and turkey-
cocks before the yeare of our Lord 1530 were not seen with us." İn
1541 we find a constitution of Archbishop Cranmer directing that of
such large fowls as cranes, swans, and turkey-cocks, there should be but
one dish; and we see the bird mentioned as no great rarity at the
inauguration dinner of the serjeants-at-law in 1555. The learned.
brothers had upon that occasion two turkeys and four turkey chicks,
charged at four shillings each, swans and cranes being valued at ten
shillings, and capons at half-a-crown.'-p. 129.

Upon these and other carefully collected evidences, a verdict, according to the careful Justice, may be given in favour of the Spaniards as the importers from America of this great addition to our poultry-yards; and he abides by old Barnaby Googe's decision that the introduction of the turkey into this country must have taken place about the year 1530.

The habits of the wild turkey of North America are drawn from Lawson, Audubon, and Bennett; and a very picturesque description of the wild turkey of Honduras (Meleagris ocellata) is abridged from Cuvier. In regard to this noble species, we

would

would recommend the author's concluding paragraph to the special attention of the present intelligent secretary of the Zoological Society or why not of the spirited Marquis of Breadalbane, who has so successfully restored the Capercailzie:

'With the naturalised poultry from Asia, Africa, and America before our eyes, there cannot exist a doubt that the Ocellated Turkey would thrive with us. The benefactor who conferred the domestic turkey upon Europe is unknown. He who succeeds in naturalising the ocellated turkey will have the merit of introducing the most beautiful addition to our parks and homesteads-to say nothing of its utility since the importation of the peacock; and, in these days of record, his name will not be forgotten.'-p. 137,

In his chapters on swans our Zoologist rises in style and illustration to the height of all the associations which the image of that noble and graceful bird recalls. England, it appears, every winter sees two species of wild swan-the Hooper (Cygnus ferus), and Bewick's swan (Cygnus Bewickii), first accurately distinguished by Mr. Yarrell;-and is occasionally visited by the Polish swan (Cygnus immutabilis). The tame swan (Cygnus olor) is a distinct species from these. There are few writers-indeed we know of none-in our language, by whom the characters, the habits, and the singular anatomy of these stately aquatic birds have been more clearly and beautifully described. It is plain that few non-medical naturalists have so diligently availed themselves of the instructions and illustrations which our museums of comparative anatomy afford. Take for example this sketch of the chief characteristics of the osteology :

'Let us examine the bony framework of a swan. What an admirable piece of animated ship-building it is! How the ribs rise from the broad and keeled sternum to support the lengthened pelvis and the broad back, which form a goodly solid deck for the young cygnets to rest on under the elevated, arched, and sail-like wings of the parent; and how the twenty-five vertebræ of the neck rise into a noble ornamental prow, crowned with the graceful head. How skilfully are the oary legs and feet fitted-just where their strokes would be best brought to bear for the purpose of putting the living galley in motion! It is a work worthy of the great Artificer.'-p. 139.

-Or this picture of the vocal organization of the Hooper, whose loud and wild but plaintive notes procured for it the name of Cygnus musicus from Bechstein, and were the origin of the classical allusions to the song of the dying swan, deemed fabulous by those who have supposed the ancients to have referred to the mute and tame swan exclusively :

The wind instrument which produces these sounds is a curious piece of animal mechanism. The cylindrical tracheal tube passes down the neck,

neck, and then descends between the forks of the merrythought to the level of the keel of the breast-bone, which is double; and this windpipe, after traversing nearly the whole length of the keel between the two plates, is doubled back as it were upon itself, and passing forwards, upwards, and backwards again, ends in a vertical divaricating bone, whence two long bronchial tubes diverge, each into their respective lobe of the lungs. In short, our winged musician carries a French horn in his chest, but it is not quite so melodious as Puzzi's. In the females and young males, the windpipe is not inserted so deeply.'-p. 140.

Mr. Broderip does not allow even the Swan with Two Necks' to escape him, but evidently deems that common sign to have no foundation whatever in nature; for, in his learned antiquarian dissertation on 'swan-marks,' he alludes to the two cuts or ' nicks' in the Vintners' mark, and infers that 'from their “ swans with two nicks" have been hatched the double-necked swans whose portraits grace our sign-boards.' With much submission, we would venture to recall a picture in nature, which can hardly have escaped this observer. When the swan takes its weary cygnet on its back, and arching over it the protecting pinions, swims deeply with its precious burthen, the hidden young one may be seen to protrude its head and neck from its downy chamber close behind the neck of the parent-and the two slender flexible columns springing, as it were, from a common base, and often moving in opposite directions, then present a lively image, though with some disproportion, of the swan with two necks.' It is curious to watch the modified instincts of the parent under these circumstances. If a tempting weed floats deeply past, the mother dips her head and neck at full stretch, but makes no effort to give that half-rotation of the trunk which is the common movement when about to feed, for this act would produce a vertical position of the body which would throw the cygnet overboard.

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From the specimens which we have culled as to the feathered tribes, a just estimate may be formed of the bulk of the work. The chapters on dogs and cats, apes and monkeys, elephants and -dragons are truly Recreations.' We had supposed that the teeming literature of late devoted to popular science had exhausted all that could be told of elephantine memory, canine sagacity, and quadrumanous dexterity and imitativeness; but we were mistaken. The tact displayed in the selection of instances, with the life of the descriptions, has proved sufficient to impart a freshness to the most hackneyed subjects in zoology. But the closing section? What, it will be asked, has he found to say about Dragons? Have the regions of romance and nursery-rhyme been ransacked for his finale? Much goodly narrative and legend in both prose and verse have unquestionably contributed

to

to lighten and embellish the pages on sea-dragons, flying dragons, and ancient terrestrial dragons. But the greater part of them is honestly filled by a most agreeable and instructive reviewal of the zoological, anatomical, and geological history of the fossil 'Saurians;' which, realizing or surpassing in bulk, in power, and in strange combinations of forms, the dragons of romance, have been, of late, restored as they were in life, for all the purposes of contemplation.

The dragons of the sea, or Enaliosaurs, are first tablednamely, the Ichthyosaurus, the Plesiosaurus, and the Pliosaurus:to which he subjoins a skilful sketch of the great extinct marine monster-lizard, of the length and bulk of a grampus,'-the remains of which are most abundant at Maestricht, in the bed of the Meuse, whence its name Mosasaurus. The Ichthyosaurus, or great fish-dragon, has been well compared in its general form to a gigantic fish of the abdominal order, i. e., with the hinder fins placed far behind the fore pair-but with a longer tail and a smaller caudal fin-scaleless, moreover-having apparently been covered with a smooth and finely-wrinkled skin like that of the whale-tribe. It had a huge head, with long and strong jaws well set with sharp destructive teeth, and provided with enormous eyes, furnished like the sea-turtle and birds with a circle of osseous plates arranged round the aperture in the sclerotic where the clear cornea or window of the eye was set. The general type of construction of the skeleton of the ichthyosaurus, and especially of his skull, was that which we now trace in the crocodile, but the vertebra were cupped at both ends like those of fishes. Thus the head of a crocodile, the eyes of a bird, the paddles and skin of a whale, and the vertebræ and outward form of a fish were all combined in this extinct monster. The deposits of the primeval seas, forming the oolitic and cretaceous series of the secondary strata of England, have already been found to contain ten species of ichthyosaur, some of them upwards of thirty feet in length.

The Plesiosaurus-a less bulky and portentous dragon, but with a dentition as strictly carnivorous appears to have infested estuaries rather than the open sea. The most striking difference in its external appearance as compared with the ichthyosaurus is the excessive length of the neck with a corresponding smallness of head: the trunk and tail present the ordinary proportions; it was provided with four paddles like those of the turtle, but longer, more tapering, and flexible. The vertebræ are nearly flat at the ends, as in whales, but are constructed after the type of the crocodiles: the skull combines the cranial characters of the existing crocodiles and lizards: and with these characters bor

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