consider the wistful looks the survivor casts around it to see for its faithful mate, and with what anxiety it swims round and round, still keeping its eye on the place where it was taken on shore; but this is in some measure to be observed in others of the swimming birds in breeding time, though not so much as in this; however, I have observed a male goosander, when the female was shot, continue a long while near the same place, probably still expecting his mate.'

Of the defensive prowess of the Skua Gull (Larus Cataractes), we are favoured with these notices :

As I approached the summits of the high mountains, I came near the skua's quarters, which are affixed on the very peaks. I no sooner approached but I was attacked with so great fury, that every one of those who were with me, as well as myself, were obliged to do him obeisance at every stroke. He beat my dog entirely out of the pit, insomuch that he was obliged to run in among our legs for shelter, and could not be forced out again, for though bonxie (as he is here called) had some regard for us while we kept together, on him he had no mercy, every whip he fetched him made his own wings crack, and the dog crouch into the hollows of the moor, till we came up and relieved him. I followed one of them to some distance from the rest, which made me part good company, and received some very rude salutes for my imprudence from three of these birds that made at me with the utmost rage. I defended myself the best way I could with my gun, fired several times at them, but, as none dropped, the report did not startle them in the least, rather seemed to enrage them the more. When the inhabitants are looking after their sheep on the hills, the skua often attacks them in such a manner that they are obliged to defend themselves with cudgels held above their heads, on which it often kills itself.

The method of life is much the same as in the parasitic gull, (our former species,) only this attacks the larger kind of gulls as the other does the lesser. By the most minute inquiry, I could not find that it ever meddled either with its congeners or others to destroy them. Its fury seems to be more defensive than offensive. When we meet it at sea it seems to be a stupid-like bird, and often swims within an oar's length of the boat.

In Foula this is a privileged bird: no man will nor dare shoot it, under the penalty of sixteen shillings and eight-pence sterling, nor destroy its eggs. When they meet it at sea, whatever fish they have in the boat, skua always gets a share, and all this out of gratitude for beating off the eagle, who dares not venture to prey on the island during the breeding season. Skua, indeed, is not so strong as the former, but much more nimble, strikes at him without mercy with such effect that he makes the eagle roar aloud; and his retreat is so sudden as to avoid all danger from his clumsier antagonist.

• I asked particularly whether skua did not sometimes pay himself for defending their flocks, by taking a lamb now and then, but one and all assured me they had never seen or heard of a single instance of his doing so."

The

The Shear-water, or Shanks-puffin, (Procellaria puffinus,) is more prized by the rock-men than almost any other prey :

For this prey, one sitting on the brink of the rock, with a coil of rope made of hair on his arm, will let his neighbour many fathoms over the steepest rocks, such as would make others shudder only to look at, and yet these people think no more of it than an airing; and though few years pass without some or other of them perishing, yet that never deters the survivors, such an influence has the love even of a little gain on the human mind, that not the most imminent dangers can deter them from pursuing it at all events, even though death stares them in the face every moment they are on these expeditions. The smallest accident may ruin them,-the untwisting of the rope, — the slipping of a noose, the rubbing of it on the rugged rocks, all may (be) and sometime are fatal to the climbers; yet so venturesome are they, that they often let one another down small heights with straw ropes. Well might the poet call this a "horrid trade;" it is really dreadful to see people let over a rock several hundred fathoms' height, with the deep below them, supported only by the single arm of their comrades, who have nothing to rest themselves against, but must depend on their strength for both their preservation. Sometimes, indeed, both slip together.'

The list of Reptiles is limited to the Frog and Toad,-animals of such common occurrence, that Mr. Low very properly dispenses with describing them. Prompted, however, by those feelings of humanity which appear to have characterized him, he reminds the experimental tormentors of the larger animals, that the tail of the living tadpole is an excellent object for the solar microscope, and admirably adapted for illustrating the circulation of the blood; while he pleads in favour of the harmless disposition of the toad, which is often persecuted from the mere prevalence of ignorance and prejudice.

Of the Cetaceous tribes, the species here enumerated are, the common, the round-lipped, and the beak-headed Whale; the great-headed, the round-headed, and the high-finned Cachalot; the Porpesse; and the Grampus. The beak-headed whale we suspect to be the Delphinous melas of Neill, which occasionally visits the Orkneys in large troops.

The Cartilaginous Fishes which the author specifies are, the Skate, sharp-nosed Ray, Thornback, piked Dog-fish, basking Shark, white Shark, lesser Dog-fish, Sturgeon, Lump-fish, Sea-snail, longer, shorter, and little Pipe-fish, and the Fishing Frog; and the Osseous kinds are, the Eel, Conger, Wolf-fish, Launce, Cod, Haddock, Coal-fish, Pollack, Whiting, Ling, Whistle fish, Torsk, the spotted, purple, and viviparous Blenny, black Goby, Father Lasher, Opah, Holibut, Plaice, Flounder, Sole, Turbot, Wrasse, three-spined and fifteen-spined Stickle-back, Mackerel, Salmon, Bull-trout, Trout, Pan, (samlet,) Charr, Gray

ling, Argentine, Herring, Gemmeous Dragonet, Gray Gurnard, and Saury. Few of these have suggested any observations that can at present be regarded as new, or particularly striking. The account of the Coal-fish, however, derives considerable interest from the circumstance of its extensive consumption in these northern islands. The Torsk of the Shetlanders is also deserving of our notice, because it is rarely found farther south than the Pentland Frith, and appears to have been unknown to some of our most popular writers on Natural History. It is the Gadus brosme of recent ichthyologists; though some persons have strangely confounded it with Gadus callarias, or Dorse, having been probably misled by the English name. When properly cured, the Torsk is preferred to either Cod or Ling.

It does not appear that the insects and vermes entered into the author's conception of the present Fauna; which is the more to be regretted, because his situation was peculiarly favourable for the investigation of many of the marine zoophytes and lithophytes, whose history now forms a very interesting department of animal physiology. If the editor has courage to visit the dreary shores of the north, he is, we understand, eminently qualified to supply this defect. In the mean-time, by giving publicity to Mr. Low's manuscript, he has rendered no inconsiderable service to the study of British zoology. We have also reason to believe that he has performed his task with the strictest regard to fidelity; and we are certain that he is innocent of a very prevalent literary transgression, that of overloading his author's text with a mass of annotation. Some readers will perhaps be disposed to think that he has erred in the opposite extreme; since he has not even deigned to explain the few provincial terms which occur in the text, such as fog, for moss, skirle for a shrill scream, riddle for sieve,anent for concerning, &c. He has, however, rendered a substantial act of justice to the memory of his author, by committing the MS. to the press, since a writer of some name had very freely availed himself of its contents without acknowlegement. The success of Mr. Low's labours may also contribute to stimulate the Scotish clergy to explore the productions of their respective parishes, at a period when the sources of information are distributed into many channels, and when opportunities are afforded to students of divinity for attending gratuitous courses of lectures on the various branches of Natural History.

ART.

ART. IV. The World before the Flood, a Poem, in Ten Cantos; with other occasional Pieces. By James Montgomery, Author of "The Wanderer of Switzerland," the "West Indies," &c. 8vo. pp. 304. 128. Boards. Longman and Co. 1813.

BRIEF

Mr.

RIEF and unsatisfactory as are the notices of our antediluvian ancestors, given in the first five chapters of the book of Genesis, yet is it not a kind of presumption, even in a poet, to attempt a supplement to this part of the Mosaic history? To effect an object of this nature, Fancy and Imagination must be put in requisition, and so far it falls within the province of the Muse: but, as the subject is "hedged with sanctity," liberties must not be rashly taken with it. Montgomery's view of the World before the Flood is sketched after the manner of several modern Scripture-epics, and is liable to some of the objections with which critics have repeatedly assailed those compositions. In more respects than one, it has disappointed us; and we must urge against him the apparently captious complaint that he has amplified too much in some parts and not enough in others. It is an anachronism revolting to modern faith to transfuse the Psalms of David, the Prophesies of Isaiah, and the bright discoveries of the Gospel, into the Pentateuch; thus enlarging the predictions of Enoch so as to supersede the necessity of subsequent revelations. After the lapse of nearly six thousand years, we look back to the primitive state of the human race through a series of divine dispensations: but we destroy the character of the primitive age, violate all probability, and transgress against the direct testimony of sacred history, when we confound the meridian blaze of "the fullness of time," with the faint glimmerings of divine light that were diffused over the infant world. No authority can justify such an incongruity; and Mr. Montgomery surely might have felt that the example of Milton in this case ought not to be followed: especially as the composition of a speech, supposed to have been delivered by a venerable patriarch, and made by the help of tacking together scraps of the Bible, is a practice too easy for a man of real genius.

If, however, Mr. M. has in our judgment been too liberal to the holy sages before the flood, by representing their religious system as more perfect than it really was, we think that he has not done sufficient justice to the inventors and improvers of the arts at that early age. Having related the death of Adam, who lived, according to the Mosaic account, 930 years, he may be considered as placing the events which his muse records about the middle or towards the end of the tenth cen

See M. R. Vol. lxiv. N. S. p. 144.

tury

tury from the creation. The unexampled vigour of the patriarchs, manifested by their great longevity, could not have been exerted through several centuries without effect; and we find even by the concise intimations of the Mosaic history, that they must have excelled in many useful arts. Gardening and tillage required implements, while the making of tents and the construction of cities demanded still more ingenuity of inven tion. The use of the harp and the pipe indicated a knowlege of music; and the working in brass and iron manifests an extent of science of which at first the reader is not aware. Since neither brass nor iron is found in the metallic state, mining and the metallurgic art must have been familiar to the antediluvians; and if they could work in brass and iron, they could not only construct trumpets to sound to battle, and swords and bucklers for the combat, but also instruments and vessels of all kinds. It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that their improvements in the arts of civil life were much advanced, and that their knowlege of domestic comforts prevented the necessity of their reposing on mere beds of leaves. The construction of the Ark, as it is called, is a most striking evidence of the practical skill of the antediluvians. Reckoning the cubit at the medium length of 18 inches, this vessel was 450 feet long, 75 wide, and 45 deep, with a sloping deck; and the formation of such a floating machine, with its adaptation to the various uses for which it was designed, bespeaks an extensive knowlege of naval architecture. The conjecture of Dr. Geddes that it was made of osiers, or was merely a piece of basket-work, secms not to be defensible; for it is beyond the utmost ingenuity of man to make out of such materials a box or vessel of so vast a size, having, moreover, three stories or decks. On the face of the narrative, as it has come down to us, (for we are not here discussing the accuracy or genuineness of the record,) we say that the inhabitants of the world, at the end of the first thousand years, were more advanced in science than Mr. Montgomery has uniformly represented them; and that his poem would have been improved, had he more availed himself of this fact in his picture of the first patriarchs.

Josephus (lib. i. cap. 2. of his Antiquities) speaks of the scientific knowlege at which the human race had arrived, in the tenth age from Adam, immediately preceding the flood; and he reports that, for the purpose of transmitting a testimony

The Nelson first-rate ship of war, now building, measures from the fore-part of the figure-head to the aft-part of the taffel 244 feet, or on the gun-deck 205: ita extreme breadth, 53 feet 6 inches; and depth in hold, 24 feet.

REV. FEB. 1814.

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