combining in his own person gifts and graces worthy of his high mission, the learning of a Calvin, the eloquence of a Luther, the ceaseless labours of a Whitefield, and the heavenly benignity of a Leighton or a Howe? In the absence of such a messenger, it will be happy if each humbler labourer do what he can within his own circle of influence to wipe off the opprobrium under which the Christian ministry has fallen, to re-assert its appointed province, and to gain its destined end; "that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But, speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. From whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love."

The two writers, with whose works this article is headed, have wellnigh exhausted the subject of which we have thus succinctly treated; and these volumes have been so extensively known to the British Churches, long before the commencement of our labours, as to render quotations from them superfluous. We cannot say the works are of equal merit, but if the first-named be the more flowing and popular, the second seems to us the more laborious, masculine, and learned; and if our high estimate and warm recommendation of the two can avail anything, to promote or produce even the re-perusal of them by our readers, we are sure we are not only performing an act of justice to the respected authors, but contributing to the furtherance of the great cause which they and we have in common at heart-the cause of Christian Union.

ART. VI.--The Birds of Australia. By J. GOULD, F.L.S., &c. London. 1844.

THE author of the "Birds of Australia" has been favourably known to the cultivators of natural history for many years, as one of their most zealous and successful fellow-labourers. Ardently attached to the study of the feathered tribes, he has prosecuted his researches with untiring industry, and, by the publication of his stores of knowledge, of no ordinary amount and value, he has gratified the lovers of ornithology, and furnished to the physiologist and nomenclator important and extensive materials for their respective purposes.

The labourers in the field of ornithology may be suitably arranged into three great classes, with discriminating characters, exhibiting peculiar excellences, and no less obvious defects. In the first class, we may place those who occupy themselves with the anatomical character of birds, and who are mechanics of so low an order, that they content themselves with the structure and arrangement of the different parts of the organism, too seldom attending to the functions of the different members in the living subject. Viewing birds only in connexion with the scalpel, there is, with such, a lack of knowledge respecting the adaptation of the forms and motions of the animal to its social condition, and the external objects with which it is more or less intimately connected.

The attention of ornithologists of the second class is chiefly occupied with the forms and the colouring of the external parts, with the distribution of birds into orders and genera, with the establishment of new species, and the determination of specific differences. In certain cases, we find the members of this group extending their views to the habits of birds, to their physical and geographical distribution, and thus embracing a knowledge of those characters which fit them for the places they are appointed to occupy. In other examples, we find individuals claiming to be ornithologists, and almost exclusively occupied with what may be termed the Literary history of birds, searching out the authors who have described the species, the various synonymes under which a bird has been recognized, and applying the "inflexible law of priority," under certain empirical restrictions, for the purpose of giving to our modern nomenclature a fixedness of terms, certainly desirable, but, perhaps, in the present state of society, scarcely attainable. The third class of ornithologists embraces those who, untram

melled by the disclosures of the anatomist, or the precise nomenclature of the formalist, occupy themselves with the elegant forms, the graceful motions, and the gaudy colourings of the feathered tribes. Their descriptions too frequently, we had almost said invariably, abound in illustrations in a great measure derived from the imagination, rather than from the realities of the creation, and give indications of the poet instead of the observer. They fancy that they have perused" the Book of Nature," and fully comprehend its revelations, although they remain comparatively ignorant of the very language in which it is written, and too conceited to occupy themselves with the requisite interrogatories. These ornithologists, if it be pardonable to give to the term such a latitude of meaning as to be capable of including them, can fill whole pages with words conveying scarcely a single definite truth, and, stranger still, imagine after all that they are exhibiting examples of fine writing. That authors of this sort should be able to procure readers, is perhaps even more surprising, did we not bear in mind the many, who, in perusing a book, care not to be annoyed by the trouble of thinking, reading being to such persons a sort of mesmerising process.

The author of the work before us is a highly respectable example of the second class of ornithologists to whom we have referred. He has no tendency to enter into minute details, when there is no principle to guide, and he carefully avoids filling his pages with unmeaning phraseology. While he feels himself unequal to enter upon those structural details which occur in the delightful pages of our sadly-neglected, but venerable Willoughby, he nevertheless aims at a precision in description equal to a Wagler or a Temminck, while his sober-mindedness prevents him from imitating the imaginative excesses of Audubon. Mr. Gould's first work, as an ornithologist, was commenced in 1831, under the title, a "Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains.” This work, like the subsequent productions of the same author, consisted of plates representing nearly all the species of the natural size, the figures being from Mrs. Gould's pencil, which has been intelligently declared" aussi vrai que frais," with an accompanying letter-press, in imperial folio-a luxurious style of publication, which has been followed in his subsequent efforts to illustrate his favourite science. The contents of the work were derived from dried specimens in the possession of the author, and did not fail to make the public acquainted with several interesting and new forms, while it gave satisfactory indication of those treasures in store for Hodgson and others in that stupendous mountain range. On the completion of this undertaking, Mr. Gould immediately undertook the publication of a still more laborious work, requiring greater research and comparisons. We refer to

"The Birds of Europe," as a production of great value and usefulness, not only to the student of European ornithology, but to such as are occupied with the more accessible objects of the British Fauna. Although chiefly confined to descriptions from stuffed specimens, he has, notwithstanding, corrected many errors of nomenclature; defined, with more precision, characteristic differences; and assigned, from satisfactory data, the limits of the geographical distribution of rare and even common species. Hastening on to the consideration of the work immediately before us, we shall merely advert to the titles of those other works, all of which tended to establish Mr. Gould's reputation as an industrious and faithful investigator of the feathered tribes-" A Monograph of the Ramphastidæ or Family of Toucans,"" A Monograph of the Trogonidæ or Family of Trogons," and "Icones Avium."

Had Mr Gould entered upon the task of enumerating and describing the birds of Australia, from the preserved specimens in this country and in the continental museums, and availed himself freely of all that had been published on the subject by Lewin, Vigors, Horsfield, and others, his work might have been a useful one, as a masterly compilation mixed with much original matter; but it would have been destitute of the novelty and freshness which characterize all the portions of the charming production before us. Nor need we be surprised at the peculiar excellence of this work, when we consider that the author visited many of the haunts of the birds which he introduces to the notice of his readers, and delineated their forms and attitudes, while the actors in the scene were sporting in his presence. Besides, he enjoyed opportunities of procuring specimens at different places and times, and was thus enabled to guard against those deceptive appearances which are produced or modified by age, sex, and season. He formed and cultivated an acquaintance with the living objects of his researches in their native haunts, in the recesses of the forest, and the intricacies of the scrub, in the open plains and the swamps of that singular country. He has thus acquired a fund of knowledge worth communicating, and qualified himself for imparting to his readers a portion of that pleasure which he enjoyed, when gazing on the many new forms which enlivened those secluded scenes to which the labours of the enterprising colonist had not extended.

Our author, in company with Mrs. Gould, and a staff of suitable assistants, left the shores of this country in May 1838, touching at Teneriffe, and arriving safely at Van Diemen's Land, after a passage of usual length, and the observation of those groups of palmipedal birds, which, in succession, relieve the otherwise tedious uniformity of the voyage.

The field of investigation on which our author first entered, and which occupied him about ten months, embraced Van Diemen's Land and the islands of Bass's Straits. He afterwards proceeded to the south coast of New Holland, occupying Adelaide as his station, and making the borders of the Murray River the principal scene of his operations. Sidney next became his temporary residence, with the view of making the necessary arrangements for penetrating into the least explored districts of the colony. It is gratifying to be able to record the testimony which Mr. Gould readily tenders, to the kindness which he experienced from Governor Gipps and many other intelligent individuals. His Excellency, in particular, furnished him with convicts for servants, together with tents and stores requisite for the journey. Having thus prepared for taking the field, he now commenced his operations by proceeding to the mouth of the Hunter River, and following the course of that stream to its origin in the Liverpool range. Afterwards, having crossed the Liverpool plains, he explored the neighbourhood of the Mokai, the Peal, and the Namoi. Meanwhile, his assistant, Mr. Gilbert, who had been pursuing his researches in Western Australia, proceeded northward to investigate the ornithology of Port Essington and its neighbourhood. Having thus devoted two years of ardent research after the feathered tribes of Australia, our author returned to Europe loaded with the spoils of the chase, and anxious to convey to others a portion of that enjoyment which his enthusiasm had secured. He returned, however, a widower, and was thus urged by other motives to give his mind employment by the occupation of authorship, rather than suffer it to dwell on his bereavement.

It is matter of regret that our author has not prefixed to his Birds of Australia, an outline of his excursions, however brief, and embracing the more remarkable incidents in his several journeys. The only approximation to such a treatise which he has furnished, is to be found in the details given in an interesting article on Mr. Gould's "Ornithological Works," inserted in the April No. of the Westminster Review for the year 1841. We are of opinion that a volume of travels by our author, would exhibit to us many pictures of deep interest, not merely to the ornithologist, but to the statist, the moralist, and the emigrant. What, for instance, could be more entertaining and instructive than the description of a tent scene in the bush, with the convicts unreservedly, and to wile away the time, amusing one another with the details of their juvenile delinquency, their education in crime, their hair-breadth escapes from the police, their successful burglaries, and their last act in fatherland, when the arm of the law took hold of them, and the verdict of a jury procured for them a free passage