ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.

Notwithstanding the author's vigilance, some nominal, and a few other typographical, errors have escaped him; the reader will be kind enough to correct them from the following notices.

In addition to the Ornithological publications mentioned in various parts of this work, another ought to be noticed lately begun under the superintendance of Sir WM. JARDINE, bart. and P. J. SELBY, esq. with the co-operation of many other gentlemen eminent in the science. It is entitled Illustrations of Ornithology, and is designed, in the first instance, to display the newest groups and newest species, and afterwards all the species which have already been described. The Plates are to be coloured correctly after nature, and are also to be accompanied with scientific letter-press descriptions. It is in royal 4to. One number has already appeared.

Page 6. If any additional evidence were wanting to prove that angling is one of the worst of sports, a painful instance has been lately supplied to me. Walking on the banks of the canal in Forest-Hill wood, I saw an angler who had just caught a small pike about a foot long; but not being able to detach the hook from the throat of the fish, he was obliged to pass his finger under the gills, and to cut out the hook from the throat with a knife; this being done, the fish still continued to breathe. I urged the angler to kill the fish at once; but no, the animal was to remain in agony, because, while it remained alive, putrefaction would not take place!

Page 14, line 10 from the bottom, for dilata read dilatata. ·Page 22, lines 5, 15, and the last, for Taylor-bird, read Tailorbird; in page 248, line 6 from the bottom, make the same correction; and again in page 323, lines 1 from the top, and 6 and 7 from the bottom, make the same corrections, as well as

wherever else in this work Taylor-bird may be found; Tailorbird being the usual and accredited spelling.-32, line 7, for voluminious read voluminous.—36, col. 2, line 8, for Gallinoula read Gallinula.-37, line 11 from the bottom, for chrysæëtos read chrysaëtos.

In pages 41 and 42, the Circular Diagrains explanatory of the Quinary Arrangement ought to have been placed in a circular form instead of that in which they now stand; but the page is altogether too small to permit a proper display of this system.

It should have been mentioned in page 48, that there is another disease of birds called also pip: it consists in a thick white skin or film that grows under the tip of the tongue; and is said to arise from want of water, or drinking that which is impure, or by eating improper food. It is cured by simply pulling off the film with the fingers and rubbing the tongue with salt. Hawks are said to be peculiarly liable to this disease.

In page 49, it is stated that "the organ of smell is said, in the Gannet, to be wanting." This is, however, not correct; there is probably no deficiency in the smell of that bird; but, from the peculiar structure of its tongue, the taste is very probably incomplete.

Page 52, line 15 from the bottom, after also add to.—56, line penult., for appears, read appear.—58, line 12, for Virginianus read Virginiana.

Page 59. In addition to the paragraph concerning the change of plumage in the female bird, it may be stated that a paper by Mr. YARREL was read before the Royal Society in May last, and will appear in the next publication of the Philosophical Transactions, in which it is clearly shewn, by numerous facts, that the alteration in plumage does not arise from age, but from disease of the sexual organs; nay, that not only may the female be made to produce feathers and other appearances like the male by an artificial abstraction of merely a portion of the oviduct, so that the continuity of the canal may be destroyed, but that the male, as in the capon, becomes also greatly altered in manners and plumage by

ALTERATION IN THE PLUMAGE OF BIRDS. XXV.

the abstraction of the organs of generation. The conclusion drawn by Mr. YARREL is that age is not necessary to this peculiar appearance of the female; and that both male and female become, as it were, a neuter gender, by the deprivation of the sexual organs, and that both assume characters decidedly intermediate between the two sexes. The change, however, in the colour of the feathers of birds is not produced by this natural or artificial disease only: for the plumage of some birds is considerably heightened as the sexual organs dilate in the spring; in the decline of summer the plumage loses again its brilliancy, returning to shades of grey and white for defence during the winter; at which time also the sexual organs become contracted and the voice subsides.

Page 62, line 13, for tail read rail.

Pages 64 and 250. Alauda arvensis, or SKY-LARK. Notwithstanding what is stated concerning the song of the female lark, a bird-catcher in the neighbourhood of London assures me that the female larks do not sing; that it is the constant practice of the bird-catchers to kill them when caught. That the young males if taken at once from the nest and bred up in confinement have not so beautiful a note as those caught in nets in the autumn: a proof here that nature is the best teacher.

Page 67, line 9, for similiarly read similarly.—81, line 14 from the bottom, for their moss read its moss.

Pages 90, 91, 92, and 93, for ANDREW WILSON read ALEXANDER WILSON.

Page 96, line 3, for Axilla read Axillæ.-117, line 10 from the bottom, for prevails read prevail.

Page 124. Of the SWAN, (Cygnus Olor,) I find the following notice in the Universal Magazine for 1749, vol. v. page 58, in an account of Abbotsbury, Dorset. The royalty of this town is in the family of the Horners, who have a Swannery here containing from 7 to 8000 swans."

It should have been stated, in page 130, that, although in some districts of the kingdom the Wild Duck is called a Mallard, the

term Mallard is applied, in the west of England, to the male of the tame duck.

Page 132, line 9 from the bottom, for moonlight read noonlight.

Page 150. Concerning the Rook, I have been since favoured with the perusal of the late Lord ERSKINE'S POEM; it is entitled the FARMER'S VISION, and was composed, his Lordship informs us, in consequence of his having, at the instance of his bailiff in Sussex, complained to a neighbour of his Rookery, the only one in that part of the country; but having been afterwards convinced of the utility of Rooks, his Lordship countermanded his complaint, and wrote the Farmer's Vision, which consists of about 300 lines, with some very pertinent notes. In justice to his Lordship it ought, however, to be stated, that he distinctly asserts he is not a poet; that the production was not fit for publication, and that a few copies only were printed for friends who asked for them, and that it was too long to make them in writing. It is dated from Buchan-Hill, Sussex, December 25, 1818. Without controverting his Lordship's position, that he was not a poet, there will be no difficulty in stating that there never was a man so eminent as an orator as Lord ERSKINE, who might not have been a poet had he chosen to direct his attention to the pursuit of poetry ;-the soul of eloquence, and the soul of poetry, if not identical, are so nearly allied as scarcely to be distinguishable. Exquisite sensibility belongs to both.

His lordship, at the commencement of the poem, in allusion to birds and other animals, says,

"They whisper truths in reason's ear,

If human, pride would stoop to hear."

He then proceeds to describe how a flock of rooks were shot at by his bailiff, some of whom were

"Fainting from many a cruel wound,

And dropping lifeless on the ground."

When a rook thus addressed his lordship: "Before the lord of this domain,

Sure, justice should not plead in vain,

LORD ERSKINE'S "FARMER'S VISION." xxvii.

How can his vengeance thus be hurl'd
Against his favourite lower world?

A sentence he must blush to see
Without a summons or a plea;
F'en in his proudest, highest times,
He ne'er had cognizance of crimes,
And shall he now, with such blind fury,
In flat contempt of judge and jury,
Foul murder sanction in broad day,
Not on the KING'S but GOD's highway?"
Touch'd with the sharp but just appeal,
Well turn'd at least to make me feel,
Instant this solemn oath I took-

No hand shall rise against a Rook."

I can afford no farther room for quotation from this humane poem; but in a note, page 22, after having quoted some lines from CowPER'S TASK, (three of which may be seen in page 283), his lordship observes "The whole subject of humanity to animals is so beautifully and strikingly illustrated in this admirable poem (the TASK), that no parents ought to be satisfied until their children have that part of it by heart."

Whether this production of his lordship be published hereafter in a separate form or not, it is to be hoped, at any rate, that those who may be collectors of his lordship's writings will take care that the Farmer's Vision is preserved amongst them."

Page 171. The author saw a beautiful specimen of the Alcedo ispida, or COMMON KING-FISHER, on the banks of the Ravensbourne, between Bromley and Beckenham, in Sept. 1827; it was actively on the wing, and darted out from beneath the bridge over which passes the public road.

He is disposed to think, that he saw the Nightingale, too, in a hedge near Lewisham, towards the latter end of August; but the shyness of this bird renders its identification, without its song, in such a situation, difficult.

Page 175, line 17, after GROSBEAK read Huw-Grosbeak.