Society therefore have done well, we think, in presenting their readers with this somewhat miscellaneous sample of the treasures which Natural History has in store for them, before putting into their hands any more methodical exposition of the subject. The popular work will be an admirable preparative for the scientific one; and the latter, we, doubt not, when it appears, will have many readers for which it will be entirely indebted to the former,

But the present publication-which by-the-bye is but half a volume, it being intended that two of these Monthly Parts should be bound up together is by no means so neglectful of principle and arrangement as might be supposed even from the remarks we have just made. The author commences by an introductory chapter, in which he states, at considerable length, the leading principles of Zoological Classificationwhich are constantly referred to throughout the remainder of the work-while the peculiarities of every species of animal described are always carefully and scientifically noted from the best authorities. The book, it will be perceived, therefore, is very far from being one of mere unconnected anecdote; but may be rather described as presenting a complete outline of the subject of which it treats, and only omitting those more technical minutia which, however indispensable in a systematic treatise, would be quite out of place in a work intended throughout to amuse its readers as well as to instruct them.

On the other hand the present volume contains a mass of fact and anecdote of a sort which a more methodical treatise on Zoology could hardly well afford to introduce, at least so plentifully. Its plan, as we have already mentioned, is to describe chiefly living specimens; and the author has in this way given to many of his details all the interest which belongs to an observer's narrative or account of what he has actually seen. The Zoological Gardens, the Menagerie at the Tower, and the other collections to be found in the metropolis, have all contributed materials for his pen. We must lay before our readers one or two specimens of the manner in which he has availed himself of these sources of illustration. We wish we could give the spirited wood-cut which accompanies the following description-which, however, will please and interest the reader, we are sure, even without that embel lishment:

"All associations between animals of opposite natures are exceedingly interesting; and those who train animals for public exhibition know how attractive are such displays of the power of discipline over the strength of instinct. These extraordinary arrangements are sometimes the effect of accident, and sometimes of the greater force of one instinct over the lesser force of another. A rat-catcher having caught a brood of young rats alive gave them to his cat, who had just had her kittens taken from her to be drowned. A few days afterwards, he was surprised to find the rats in the place of the drowned kittens, being suckled by their natural enemy. The cat had a hatred to rats, but she spared these young rats to afford her the relief which she required as a mother. The rat-catcher exhibited the cat and her nurslings to considerable advantage.* A somewhat similar exhibition exists at present.

* Broderip.

There is a little Menagerie in London where such odd associations may be witnessed upon a more extensive scale, and more systematically conducted, than in any other collection of animals with which we are acquainted. Upon the Surrey side of Waterloo Bridge, or sometimes, though not so often, on the same side of Southwark Bridge, may be daily seen a cage about five feet square containing quadrupeds and birds. The keeper of this collection, John Austin, states that he has employed seventeen years in this business of training creatures of opposite natures to live together in content and affection. And those years have not been unprofitably employed! It is not too much to believe, that many a person who has given his halfpenny to look upon this show, may have had his mind awakened to the extraordinary effects of habit and of gentle discipline, when he has thus seen the cat, the rat, the mouse, the hawk, the rabbit, the guinea-pig, the owl, the pigeon, the starling, and the sparrow, each enjoying, as far as can be enjoyed in confinement, its respective modes of life, in the company of others,-the weak without fear, and the strong without the desire to injure. It is impossible to imagine any prettier exhibition of kindness than is here shown. The rabbit and the pigeon playfully contending for a lock of hay to make up their nests; the sparrow sometimes perched on the head of the cat, and sometimes on that of the owl,-each its natural enemy; and the mice playing about with perfect indifference to the presence either of cat, or hawk, or owl. The modes by which this man has effected this, are, first, by keeping all the creatures well fed; and, secondly, by accustoming one species to the society of the other at a very early period of their lives. The ferocious instincts of those who prey on the weaker are never called into action; their nature is subdued to a systematic gentleness; the circumstances by which they are surrounded are favourable to the cultivation of their kindlier dispositions; all their desires and pleasures are bounded by their little cage; and though the old cat sometimes takes a stately walk on the parapet of the bridge, he duly returns to his companions with whom he has so long been happy, without at all thinking that he was born to de our any of them. This is an example, and a powerful one, of what may be accomplished by a proper education, which rightly estimates the force of habit, and confirms, by judicious management, that habit which is most desirable to be made a rule of conduct. The principle is the same, whether it be applied to children or to brutes."

The first animal which the author proceeds to describe, is the Dog -and he has made it the subject of an exceedingly interesting chapter. We extract from it the following account of the famous dogs of St. Bernard:

"It is delightful to turn from the blood-hounds of the conquerors of America to the Alpine spaniels of the monks of St. Bernard. These wonderful dogs have been usually called mastiffs, probably on account of their great strength; but they strictly belong to the subdivision of Spaniels, amongst which are found the shepherd's dog, the Esquimaux dog, and the other varieties most distinguished for intelligence and fidelity.

"The convent of the great St. Bernard is situated near the top of the mountain known by that name, near one of the most dangerous passages

of the Alps, between Switzerland and Savoy. In these regions the traveller is often overtaken by the most severe weather, even after days of cloudless beauty, when the glaciers glitter in the sunshine, and the pink flowers of the rhododendron appear as if they were never to be sullied by the tempest. But a storm suddenly comes on; the roads are rendered impassable by drifts of snow; the avalanches, which are huge loosened masses of snow or ice, are swept into the vallies, carrying trees and crags of rock before them. The hospitable monks, though their revenue is scanty, open their doors to every stranger that presents himself. To be cold, to be weary, to be benighted, constitute the title to their comfortable shelter, their cheering meal, and their agreeable converse. But their attention to the distressed does not end here. They devote themselves to the dangerous task of searching for those unhappy persons who may have been overtaken by the sudden storm, and would perish but for their charitable succour. Most remarkably are they assisted in these truly christian offices. They have a breed of noble dogs in their establishment, whose extraordinary sagacity often enables them to rescue the traveller from destruction. Benumbed with cold, weary in the search for a lost track, his senses yielding to the stupifying influence of frost, which betrays the exhausted sufferer into a deep sleep, the unhappy man sinks upon the ground, and the snow-drift covers him from human sight. It is then that the keen scent and the exquisite docility of these admirable dogs are called into action. Though the perishing man lie ten or even twenty feet beneath the snow, the delicacy of smell with which they can trace him offers a chance of escape. They scratch away the snow with their feet; they set up a continued hoarse and solemn bark, which brings the monks and labourers of the convent to their assistance. To provide for the chance that the dogs, without human help, may succeed in discovering the unfortunate traveller, one of them has a flask of spirits round his neck, to which the fainting man may apply for support; and another has a cloak to cover him. These wonderful exertions are often successful; and even where they fail of restoring him who has perished, the dogs discover the body, so that it may be secured for the recognition of friends; and such is the effect of the temperature, that the dead features generally preserve their firmness for the space of two years. One of these noble creatures was decorated with a medal, in commemoration of his having saved the lives of twenty-two persons, who, but for his sagacity, must have perished. Many travellers who have crossed the passage of St. Bernard, since the peace, have seen this dog, and have heard, around the blazing fire of the monks, the story of his extraordinary career. He died about the year 1816, in an attempt to convey a poor traveller to his anxious family. The Piedmontese courier arrived at St. Bernard in a very stormy season, labouring to make his way to the little village of St. Pierre, in the valley beneath the mountain, where his wife and children dwelt. It was in vain that the monks attempted to check his resolution to reach his family. They at last gave him two guides, cach of whom was accompanied by a dog, of which one was the remarkable creature whose services had been so valuable to mankind. Descending from the convent, they were in an

1

instant overwhelmed by two avalanches; and the same common destruction awaited the family of the poor courier, who were toiling up the mountain in the hope to obtain some news of their expected friend. They all perished."

The succeeding chapters embrace the subjects of the Wolf, the Jackall, the Fox, the Hyæna, the Lion, the Tiger, the Leopard, the Puma, and the Cat; with regard to each of which, the author has presented to us a mass of entertaining information from a very extensive and varied range of reading.

We rejoice, however, to observe that the Society for the Diffu sion of Useful Knowledge, are not to be allowed to monopolize the office of supplying us with a cheap popular literature, but that other parties are already appearing in the field as their rivals, or rather fellow-labourers in this good work. We must mention in particular two other publications, one which has been for some time in existence, and another which is just commencing. The first is Constable's Miscellany, of which we have now before us the 38th volume, containing "a Personal Narrative of a Journey through Norway, part of Sweden, and the Islands and states of Denmark," by a writer who takes the name of Derwent Conway, and is already known to the public as the author of a work entitled "Solitary Walks through many Lands." The present narrative is elegantly written and full of interest; and relating as it does to scenes and manners which have been comparatively but seldom described, will be received, we doubt not, as a welcome present by the reading public. There is a great deal of amusing and instructive reading in the different volumes of this Miscellany; and we are indebted to its conductors not only for various new works of very considerable merit, but for cheap and commodious reprints of several of our old favourites. We must condole, by-the-bye, with the Editor of the present volume on the atrocious usage he tells us he has met with from his printer-a person of the name of Hutchison, as it would appear, to whom we are really in doubt whether the formidable charges here advanced, are intended to impute only the most unparalleled carelessness or something still worse, even downright deception and dishonesty. Our readers must understand, in the first place, that the volume is actually disfigured by no fewer than Two typographical errors. But this is not all. These " blunders," as they are indignantly denominated, "are wholly attributable to the Printer, they not having existed in the proof-sheet returned to him by the Editor!" ever any such thing heard of since the art of printing was invented? To lull an editor's suspicions and vigilance asleep by actually sending him a correct proof-sheet, and then deliberately vitiating the page, when it could be done without any risk of detection! It is plain that if conduct such as this is to be tolerated, the occupation of an Editor is gone, and the ceremony of drawing a proof-sheet becomes for the future an idle farce. But perhaps, for the worthy editor's language is rather ambiguous, it is only meant to be intimated that the corrections made by him in the proof-sheet were not attended to by the Printer. Even if this was the whole extent of the latter's delinquency, our readers, when we mention the consequences of his carelessness, will

Was

acknowledge that the inattention was more than could be expected to be borne with patience by the meekest editor. The following is the amount of the indictment :

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'Page 13, third line from the foot, for Switzerand read Switzerland.

"Page 65, head-line, for Potery, read Poetry."

Switzerland mutilated into Switzerand, and Poetry metamorphosed into Potery! After this, any thing. The volume exhibits many other errata of tolerable magnitude-but none comparable to these. For instance, at page 46, we have "tongues" divided into two syllables, and at page 52, "anly" for "only," and at page 54, the arrival of an Englishman at a certain village in Norway, described as an "universal" instead of, what we presume is meant, an "unusual," occurrence; but these and many similar misprints the Editor very properly deems quite undeserving of notice, compared with the two enormous ones he has so conspicuously gibbeted. Nothing certainly could match Switzerand for Switzerland, and Potery for Poetry.

The other publication to which we refer, is Mr. Murray's "Family Library," which has been for some time aunounced, and the first Number, or Monthly Part, of which has just appeared, containing the commencement of a History of Napoleon Buonaparte, to be completed in two such volumes. From the form and price of this work, as well as from the description of subjects to which it seems to be chiefly confined, it is intended, we presume, to circulate principally among the wealthier classes, and to offer to them a series of neatly got up, rather than of very cheap volumes, of light and amusing literature. It is elegantly embellished with engravings both on wood and steel, and the price of each volume is Five Shillings, although the matter it contains does not exceed by much more than a fourth part that of one of the Two Shilling Volumes of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge. The appearance of the work is still, however, a most gratifying symptom of the intellectual progress of the times, and of the taste that is every where spreading among us for the elegant and humanizing enjoyments of literature. Coming especially from the quarter in which it has originated, the present publication may be taken as a confession both that the love of knowledge is rapidly diffusing itself, and that that diffusion is a blessing, on the part of those who have hitherto most pertinaciously lamented the one truth and denied the other. We do not speak this in unkindness or by way of reproach; for we have really no feeling on the subject but one of delight, that many men of high worth and talent and genius, who were wont to be against us, are now with us in this great and good cause. The friends of liberal opinions-those who were long the friends and supporters of such opinions in their state of depression and exclusion-have, in late times, had much whereon to congratulate themselves, and to triumph if they were disposed to take any tone of triumph, in the conversion of old opponents into zealous allies, and the elevation to undisputed supremacy of many of the principles which they alone had advocated while they were everywhere else the theme of denouncement and reprobation. But of all the conversions it has been