ment. sheries, and is too glaring an impofition to pafs long without amend The custom-houfe fees in Scotland are become a nuisance to the adventurers, and fo heavy as to abforb the greatest part of the bounty, especially on fmall veffels. This alfo calls aloud for redrefs.' In page 179 we are told that A man of refpectability, named Mac Bride, and now in London, declares, that he faw 18 barrels of fresh herrings given for one barrel of falt to the mafter of a fmack, and three barrels for one fhilling fterling. The owners judging this trife better than to allow them to rot without falt, as has been the cafe before. An intelligent minifter in SKYE told the author, that he had feen heaps upon heaps rotting on the shore, and, until carried off to dung the ground, no man durft pafs by on the leeward of them for the rotten offenfive effluvia emitted from the fish.' When we reflect on the lofs and difgrace which this nation muft ftill fuffer, while the Dutch continue to draw perhaps millions annually from our very fhores; while a part of the nation live in the loweft ftate of wretchedness for want of the means of employment, and in fituations the most favourable for fishing; and this, while we are giving bounties to encourage a fishery at many thousand miles diftance; we ourselves, as well as the author, find it difficult to write coolly on the fubject. The immenfe quantities of fish which frequent the coafts of the Hebrides exceed all conception : From the vaft multitude of fowls about St. Kilda, we are fure that the fish must be very plenty there. Let us for a moment, says the Rev. Kenneth Mac Aulay, minifter, who acted as miffionary there, confine our attention to the confumption made by one fingle species of the numberless fowls that feed on the herring. The folan goofe is almoft infatiably voracious; he flies with great force and velocity; toils all day with very little intermiffion, and digefts his food in a very fhort time; he difdains to eat any thing worse than herrings or mackarel, unless it be in a very hungry place, which he takes care to avoid or abandon. We shall take it for granted that there are an hundred thousand of that kind round the rocks of St. Kilda, and this calculation is by far too moderate, as no lefs than twenty thousand of them are killed yearly, including the young ones. We fhall fuppofe that the folan goofe fojourns in these feas for about feven months of the year, and that each of them deftroys five herrings in a day, a fubfiftence by no means adequate to fo greedy a creature, unless it were more than half fupported of other fishes. Here we have one hundred thousand millions of the fineft fishes in the world devoured annually by one fingle fpecies of the St. Kilda birds.' On the weft fide of the long ifle the very whales might be harpooned with eafe and fafety, inftead of going to Greenland,' (or, the author might have added, to the South Seas!) in queft of them, at much heavier expences, and greater danger, annually. The most critical time for harpooning them is, when they are feen devouring the herring by great mouthfuls, and each gap they make is conftantly filled with fresh fupplies, wifhing to fly beyond danger, but cannot for the thick bank before them, as they stand pent up in lochs, by the heavy ftorm. And the ftrongeft whale dares not pierce through them; feeing he could not move his fins for the immenfe throng, much lefs rife to the furface to breathe; therefore the monster is feen behind the herring, like a horfe eating at the face of a hayrick. Even with a hatchet and fword, Mr. Campbell of Scalpay killed a large one, who had followed the shoal of herrings too far into a narrow creek.' This tract abounds with ftrong ideas and statements of facts, which are well entitled to the attention of the Managers of the British Fishery, and might be very useful to the Minifters of our Government. Mars.,ll. ART. XI. Mufeum Leverianum. Containing felect Specimens from the Museum of the late Sir Ashton Lever, Knt. With Defcriptions in Latin and English by George Shaw, M. D. F. R. S. published by James Parkinfon, Proprietor of the above Collection. 4to. Vol. I. containing Five Numbers, confifting of 65 coloured Plates. 11. Is. each Number. Sold at the Museum, Surrey End of Blackfriar's Bridge. THE Museum of the late Sir Afhton Lever may juftly be confidered as reflecting peculiar honour on the country; and the care which has been taken in the prefervation of fo vaft an affortment of the products of nature, with the continued additions which are making to it, must be allowed to place in a very honourable point of view the exertions of the present proprietor. It had long fince been fuggefted, by zealous admirers of natural hiftory, that a collection fo diftinguished fhould be made more generally useful by having its most curious and interefting. fubjects scientifically described; and indeed, when we confider the parade with which the contents of fome foreign museums, of far inferior confequence, have been displayed to the public, we cannot but be furprized that fuch a work as the prefent should have been fo long delayed. At length, however, the pleafing task. has been undertaken; and with much attention, and at a great expence, it has been delivered to the public in the form of feparate numbers. The fubjects confift in general of the rarest and most elegant fpecimens in the collection. Several of them have never before been either figured or defcribed, and were of course entitled to more particular attention. Dr. Shaw has, throughout, given the defcriptions in Latin and English; and the profeffed intent feems to be to combine amusement amusement with inftruction. In confequence, while the generic and fpecific characters, which are conducted with much accuracy, are of themselves fufficient for the mere systematic naturalift, the general or popular defcriptions afford the more pleafing account of the various particulars relative to the hiftory and manners of each animal. We may take, as an example, the MOCKING THRUSH; which is thus defcribed * : GENERIC CHARACTER. Bill ftout, obtufely carinated at top, bending a little at the point, and flightly notched near the end of the upper mandible. Noftrils oval and naked, Tongue flightly jagged at the end, ⚫ Middle toe connected to the outer as far as the first joint. SPECIFIC CHARACTER, &c. Thrush of a lead-coloured brown above, whitish beneath. • Mocking Bird. Raii, Synops. p. 64. No. 5. p. 185. No. 31. The nightingale, fo uniformly admired as the pride of the Eu ropean woods, and fo celebrated from the earliest ages for its fupereminent mufical powers, continued to bear the palm of melody from the rest of the feathered tribe till the difcovery of the western hemifphere. At that period the knowlege of the animal world was increased in all its branches by a vast variety of new and interefting species; many of which exceed in fingularity of form all that the old Continent had displayed. The opoffums, fo remarkable for the extraordinary manner in which they bear their young about them, long after the period of exclufion, were then firft difcovered: the pipa, or toad of Surinam, which in a manner directly oppofite, bears its young in numerous cells on its back, was another object of wonder to the naturalifts of Europe while among birds, the prodigious fize of the condor, which feizes and carries off fheep, and even attacks and destroys the larger cattle, opposed to the diminutive race of humming-birds, fome of which are far lefs than feveral infects, and adorned with colours which no art can exprefs, called forth all that admiration which philofophic inquirers muit ever feel at new and curious discoveries in the history of nature. Among birds poffeffed of mufical powers, a fpecies of thrush was found to exift, to whofe voice even the warblings of the nightingale were judged inferior. It is remarkable that many of the highly gay and brilliant birds of America are deflitute of that pleafing power of fong which gives fo peculiar a charm to the groves and fields of Europe; and an elegant poet has beautifully expreffed the fuppofed fuperiority of our own ifland in this refpect: *We give the English only, for the fake of comprising the article within as narrow a compafs as poffible; referring to the volume for the Latin part of the defcription. "Nor *Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent The mufic however of the nightingale has always been confidered as plaintive or melancholy, and fuch as conveys ideas of distress.. Fleet nostem, ramoque fedens, miferabile carmen Integrat, et mæftis late loca queftibus implet.. But the notes of the bird now to be defcribed are of a livelier na. ture, a bolder ftrain, and of a more varied richness and force of tone. It fings both by day and night, and generally feats itself on the top of fome fmall tree, where it exerts a voice fo powerfully ftrong, and fo fweetly melodious, as to charm even to rapture those who listen to its lays. If we may rely on the atteftations of those who have refided on the western continent, all the thrilling fweetnefs, and varied modulations of the nightingale, muit yield to the tranfcendent mufic of the fongfter of America. Exclufive of its own enchanting note, it poffeffes the power of imitating thofe of most other birds; nay it even carries this propensity fo far as to imitate the voices of various other animals, as well as different kinds of domestic founds. This wonderful bird is as undiftinguishable by any peculiar gaiety of appearance as the European nightingale. Its general colour is a pale cinereous brown; the wings and tail deeper, or inclined to blackifh; the under part of the body is nearly white, and the two exterior feathers of the tail are of the fame colour, with dark margins; the bill and legs are black; the covert feathers of the wings are flightly tipped with white, and fome of the fhorter or fecondary wingfeathers are white alfo, forming a mark of that colour on the wing. It is nearly the fize of the common or fong-thrufh, but of a more delicate fhape. Of this bird there is a fmaller variety, which has a white line over each eye; this, by fome authors, (and amongst others by Linné,) is made a diftinct fpecies. Mr. Pennant, however, has regarded it merely in the light of a variety. It has also been seen with a fpotted breaft, which probably is the state in which it appears before it has attained its full plumage. This bird is an inhabitant of all the warmer parts of America, and is found as far North as the United British States. It chiefly frequents moift woods, and feeds principally on the different kinds of berries.' Another defcription fhall be taken from that of the Trochilus Ornatus, or RUFF-NECKED HUMMING-BIRD. GENERIC CHARACTER. Bill flender and weak, in fome ftrait, in others incurvated. Noftrils minute. Tongue very long, formed of two conjoined cylindric tubes, miffile. REV. JAN. 1795. E • Toes, Toes, three forward, one backward. • Tail confifting of ten feathers. SPECIFIC CHARACTER, &c. Pennant. Strait-billed, brown, humming-bird, with ferrugineous creft, gold-green throat, and elongated neck-feathers on each fide. • Tufted-necked humming bird. Lath. Synops. p. L'oifeau mouche dit le Hupecol de Cayenne. Pi. Enl. 640. f. 3. The brilliant and lively race of humming-birds, fo remarkable at once for their beautiful colours and diminutive fize, are the peculiar natives of the American continent, and, with very few exceptions, are principally found in the hotteft parts of America. Their vivacity, fwiftnefs, and fingular appearance unite in rendering them the admiration of mankind; while their colours are fo radiant, that it is not by comparing them with the analagous hues of other birds that we are enabled to explain with propriety their peculiar appearance, but by the more exalted brilliancy of polished metals, and precious ftones: the ruby, the garnet, the fapphire, the emerald, the topaz, and polished gold, being confidered as the moft proper objects of elucidation. It is not however to be imagined that all the fpecies of humming. birds are thus decorated; fome are even obfcure in their colours, and inftead of the prevailing fplendor of the major part of the genus, exhibit only a faint appearance of a golden-green tinge, flightly dif fufed over the brown or purplish colour of the back and wings. The genus is of a very great extent, and in order that the fpecies may with greater readiness be diftinguished, it has been found neceffary to divide them into two fections, viz. the curve billed and the straitbilled. It is under the latter of thefe divifions that we muft rank the fpecies here reprefented, which is one of the rareft of the whole tribe, and is a native of Cayenne. In fize it is nearly equal to the trochilus colubris, or common red-throated humming-bird, fo often feen in the United British States, but its colours are far different. The upper parts of the body are green gold; the under parts, except the throat, are brownish, gra. dually becoming white on the lower part of the abdomen: the Read is ornamented with a large upright, and fomewhat compreffed creft, of a delicate filky appearance, and of the richest ferruginous or reddifh colour. The long wing-feathers and tail are of a coppery brown ; the rump white. On each fide the neck are fituated feveral long feathers ftanding out in the manner of a ruff, which give a moft fingularly beautiful afpect to this fpecies; thefe feathers are of a reddifh brown, each terminated by a golden-green expanded tip, and the bird is faid to have the power of raifing or depreffing them at pleafure. The throat is golden-green, which in particular lights, changes into brown the bill and egs are blackish.' The above specimens may be fufficient to enable our readers to form a general idea of the work; and we shall only farther obferve |