CUVIER'S NATURAL HISTORY. Just Completed, in Sixteen Volumes, Illustrated by upwards of Eight Hundred Engravings, many of them from TRANSLATED, WITH LARGE ADDITIONAL DESCRIPTIONS OF ALL THE SPECIES By E. GRIFFITH, F.A.S., LT. COL. C. HAMILTON SMITH, F.R.S., “A work, which though professing at its outset to be little more than a trans- THE CLASS MAMMALIA, Complete in Twelve Parts, WITH UPWARDS OF 200 ENGRAVINGS, FORMING 5 VOLS. Price, in extra cloth boards, demy 8vo. £7. 4s.; royal 8vo. £10. 16s. ; Ditto coloured, £14. 8s.; demy 4to. India proofs, £14. 8s. "This is a valuable, or rather invaluable work. It brings the clear and simple classification of Cuvier very fairly before the English reader, and it presents to the continental one the results of observations which have of late been so largely made by our countrymen in those parts of the world to which the learned of other countries have neither so frequent nor so free access; and much of which, in its original form, is widely scattered through as many volumes, chiefly upon other subjects, as would fill a large library. "The Editors have been indefatigable. They have collected an astonishing number of new facts, and those they have put together in a manner so judicious, and clothed them in language so perspicuous, and so appropriate to the subjects, that, apart altogether from the nature of the work, as a perfect Encyclopædia of the science of those classes of animals of which it gives the history, it is an exceedingly amusing book, and would have a just claim to popularity upon that ground alone, without reference to its higher qualities. This work, therefore, in the best sense of the term, deserves to be popular, as it is calculated to entice those to read, who need to be enticed even into the acquisition of knowledge, and to reward them for the labour, which is hardly felt to be such. The characteristics of the writings of the Baron Cuvier are well known to the scientific world; clearness, conciseness, and a dignified simplicity, equally free from affected technicality of expression, and from that haunting disposition to make speculations revolve round a favourite theory, which have so much detracted from the merit, or at least the general usefulness, of many authors, otherwise by no means deficient in valuable qualifications,-are the just praise of the Règne Animal,' and are here well sustained by the able translators. "It will be borne in mind, that Cuvier was the first that assigned man a proper place in the scale of animals-took him out of the society of the ape and the bat, to which he had been condemned by Linnæus, whose arrangement of animals being wholly by the teeth, necessarily grouped together those which had few other qualities in common. On man, Cuvier is remarkably brief; but ample amends are made in the Supplement, by the editors and translators, where the more valuable parts of Campen, Blumenbach, Soemmering, Abernethy, and other eminent physiologists, are given, accompanied by remarks, condensed, but judicious, by Mr. Griffith and his coadjutors. "We have not room for many observations that suggest themselves in favour of this valuable work. Nothing can be more clear, more simple, or more modest, than the observations and conclusions throughout. Besides all that recommends them in the printed matter, these volumes abound with plates, from drawings by Landseer and others, and all executed with a spirit that well illustrates the valuable matter in the text."-The Athenæum. Price, demy 8vo. £5. 8s.; royal 8vo. £8. 2s.; ditto coloured, £10. 16s.; demy 4to. India proofs, £10. 16s. "If, as no one can deny, the study of the animated productions of nature be the most delightful that can occupy the attention of man, it is equally true that of that wide and varied kingdom, the chosen province, the very paradise, is the Birds. The gracefulness of their forms, the exquisite delicacy of their covering, the inimitable brilliancy of their colours, the light and life-giving transparency of the element in which they live, the singular variety of their habits, the delightful melody of their songs, and the most singular fact that, with organs apparently more unfitted for articulation than many of the quadrupeds, they are the only animals that can imitate man in the wonders of voice, and rival him in the intricacy of music;-these, and a thousand other qualities, with the bare enumeration of which we could fill a number of our journal, render the birds the chosen favourite of every elegant mind. "Even the fleetest of quadrupeds is heavy and lumbering in comparison. We boast of the greyhound, which lies panting and breathless upon the earth if it courses round a moderately-sized field, or the race-horse that is exhausted with a three-mile heat; but what are these to the little swift, that can awaken from the eaves of an English cottage in the morning, and nestle in a date-tree on the borders of the great desart of Sahara before the sun be down? That little twitterer is the very "Puck" of creation :-it cannot, indeed, "put a girdle round about the earth in twenty minutes," but, at the rate of 250 miles an hour, (which is considerably within the computation of Spallanzani), it can cincture the globe in less than four days, and thus be from England to Africa in the brief space of four hours; even the eider duck, apparently unwieldy as it is, could breakfast in Caithness and sup in Kent; and let the storm blow its worst, the golden eagle can dash right in the teeth of it at the rate of 40 miles an hour. "In a study which is so delightful, it is quite refreshing to think that there is a work in a form easily accessible to all, and so full and varied, that each may find that which is more immediately interesting. Such is the work now before us, in which the text of the illustrious Baron Cuvier is faithfully given, together with all that has been added to the delightful science of Ornithology since the publication of his great work. The study of Zoology, in all its departments, is reviving in this country; and we know of no publication that is more calculated to spirit it on to further exertions than this work, and the others of which it forms a part. The additional information is rendered valuable by the authorities being |