Page:The old judge, or, Life in a colony by Haliburton, Thomas Chandler vol 2.djvu/328

 INTERESTING PRESENT. Second and Revised Edition, in One Vol., 10s. Qd., bound, ZOOLOGICAL KECREATION'S. BY W, J. BRODERIP, ESQ., F.R.S. " No work in our language is better calculated than the ' Zoological Recreations' to furnish a hand-book which may cherish or awaken a love for Natural History." — Quarterly Review. " This volume takes rank with White's Selborne, Waterton's Sketches, and that delightful class of books." — Examiner. " Zoological Recreations is a pleasant book, on a delightful subject, belonging to a class far too rare, in which White of Selborne, Knapp, Waterton, Darwin, and Gosse, have earned laurels. The chief object of this class of works is to please while they instruct, to enliven as well as to enlighten. In the same list with the authors specified above, the writer of this work may be placed. Mr. Broderip's writings have, indeed, done much to diffuse a taste for natural history ; and, in the work before us, he delights us with many pleasing chapters on birds and beasts. The work will prove instructive to many a scientific man, as ■well as amuse his leisure hours. We have no doubt that it will cherish, as well as awaken, a love for natural history." — Magazine of Natural History. < " Every portion of this instructive, admirable, and charming volume, has its attractions, and is secure of popular applause. Every line contains information. To the forest choir Mr. Broderip devotes his opening pages, and as one who loves as deeply as he knows them, does he discourse of plumed harmouists, whether resident or migratory — of the cuckoo, who, like an incipient Hullah-ite, is everlastingly practising his 'thirds' — of owls, with whom are midnight gaiety, and gravity at noon — and then of the loquacious parrot — of the stately turkey, and lastly, the graceful swan, wild and tame, close the first part of a volume wherein, too, sce- nery is depicted with a skilful and loving hand, and wherein wisdom and mirth smile like the ' simplices nymphte ' of Horace. The leaves devoted to the singing birds are among the most brilliant and amusing of the book; — we may add, among the most instructive, for there is a world of instruction and novelty to be found in the details afforded of the pri- vate and public life of the plumy denizens of the woods — of their manners, morals, costume, social relations, their characteristics, language, and architecture. The author's illustrative anecdotes are good in them- selves and narrated with felicity. The second portion of Mr. Broderip's work is devoted to the consideration of animals, wild, tame, authenti- cated, and fabulous: the social dog, the selfish cat, the jibing ape, and the chattering monkey, &c. To these are added a remarkably amusing and complete chapter upon the gentle yet majestic, the crafty, yet phi- losophical elephant ; and a chapter neither of less amusement nor perfec- tion, upon land and sea dragons. Wonderful are the things of which we here read and alternately doubt and believe. The real dog-fancier will be delighted with the pages given to the origin, habits, ability, in short, complete history of the dog in all its varieties." — Church of Eng- land Qluarterly Review, HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT AJARLBOROUGH STREET.