STANLEY'S FAMILIAR HISTORY OF BIRDS.
THE attractive and familiar guise in which scientific knowledge can be dressed, is most strikingly exemplified in this History of Birds, published " under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge." It is one of the most in- struative and at the same time entertaining books on natural history that has conic under our notice. Those who read it will hardly help becoming ornithologists, if they are resident in the country. Young and old will learn from it how to glean the knowledge that is constantly before their eyes in their every-day patb, and to understand and apply it by the aid of science. It is an anecdotical account of the formation, habits, and instincts of Birds; in which knowledge and entertainment are so intimately and felicitously blended, that the stories told derive fresh interest from the scientific facts that they illustrate. No better book could be put into the hands of young folks : it will open to them a new and never-failing source of amusement. The little girl, who is now content to watch the robin picking up the crumbs at the window, and the schoolboy, whose only aim is to carry off a nest as a trophy, will by means of this book be led to trace the instinct of self-preservation in the commonest acts of the feathered tribes, and the wonderful adaptation of their structure to the most minute circumstance of the habits and locality peculiar to each class.
The two little volumes are illustrated with numerous wood-cuts, very bold and distinct. The only defect in them is the common one of the surrounding landscape being on too small a scale for the animals; so that a hare looks of the size of a roebuck, and a cuckoo is as big as the trunk of the oak on which he is perched.
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