examination of these different monuments, carried on with more coolness, has considerably lessened the idea which was entertained of their grandeur and their importance, as well as of the sciences and the state of civilization, of which they were the pledge. The delusion once exposed, and the first exaggerations set aside, the question was discussed with more impartial criticism. Particular attention was paid to the zodiacs. They were compared with the descriptions of their learned admirers; and doubts very soon arose and gathered strength. The calculations were again made, and found inaccurate; the hypotheses were brought to the test, and found untenable. Many other new hypotheses, all different from each other, and from the first, were tried, but with little success. One thing only was ascertained by this discussion -that it was no longer possible to believe in the extreme antiquity of these zodiacs. All the new systems agreed upon this point. It was not long, however, before fresh resources presented themselves; and we can now speak with more certainty upon the subject.

Two learned men, both of deserved celebrity, though on different accounts, powerfully aided by the vast treasures with which the museums of Europe have been gradually enriched, have at last raised the veil which concealed from us the history of these wonders of the ancient world. Certainly, no one expected, that, on the front of these ruined temples, erected, as it had been asserted, three thousand years before Jesus Christ,—that under those mysterious paintings, which were supposed to be the depositories of the knowledge of the infant world, would be discovered the names of Ptolemy, of Cleopatra, or of Trajan. This, however, has been done. M. Letronne, by examining at once the construction of these monuments, and the Greek inscriptions which are found on some of them; M. Champollion, the younger, by at length making himself acquainted with the import of the three classes of hieroglyphics with which they are covered; have arrived at the same conclusion. It is remarkable, too, that at the same time artists have arrived at this conclusion, by studying the sculpture and the architecture of the monuments in question. At the same time, also, travellers undesignedly confirmed these discoveries, by the manuscripts and mummies which they brought to Europe. And it was proved indisputably, in three or four different ways, that these too famous zodiacs, unworthy of the celebrity they have acquired, as well as the edifices upon the ceilings of which they were painted, were of later date than the time of Jesus Christ. The labours of M. Champollion have also proved, that those monuments of Egypt, which were of real antiquity, did not exist prior to the Pharaohs of Exodus or of Genesis; and that the profane documents which their hieroglyphics discover, in no respect contradict, but rather confirm the sacred records.

The question is now decided. The adversaries of Moses have made no reply to the positive assertions of his advocates, nor to the wellestablished facts upon which those assertions rest: by their silence they have confessed the precipitancy of their judgements, and the incorrectness of their calculations. A victory such as this, should teach men who believe in the word of God, how little they have to fear from any similar attacks. pp. 104-110.

In Chapter VIII. of his Illustrations,' the Author notices

'Circumstances worthy of attention in the character and con'duct of Moses, which support the proof of his Divine mission.' From this section, we shall make room for a concluding extract.

'If we examine the institutions of Moses, with reference to himself, and to the advantages which he might have derived from his pretended imposture, they will surprise us no less.

Every imposture has an object in view, and an aim more or less selfish. Men practise deceit for money, for pleasure, or for glory. If, by a strange combination, the love of mankind ever entered into the mind of an impostor, doubtless, even then, he has contrived to reconcile, at least, his own selfish interests with those of the human race. If men deceive others, for the sake of causing their own opinions or their own party to triumph, they may sometimes, perhaps, forget their own interests, during the struggle, but they again remember them when the victory is achieved. It is a general rule, that no impostor forgets himself long. But Moses forgot himself, and forgot himself to the last. Yet there is no middle supposition. If Moses was not a divinely inspired messenger, he was an impostor in the strongest sense of the term. It is not, as in the case of Numa, a slight and single fraud, designed to secure some good end, that we have to charge him with; but a series of deceits, many of which were gross; a profound, dishonest, perfidious, sanguinary dissimulation, continued for the space of forty years. If Moses was not a divinely commissioned prophet, he was not the saviour of the people, but their tyrant and their murderer. Still, I repeat, this barbarous impostor always forgot himself; and his disinterestedness, as regarded himself personally, his family, and his tribe, is one of the most extraordinary features in his administration.

'As to himself personally. He is destined to die in the wilderness: he is never to taste the tranquillity, the plenty, and the delight, the possession of which he promises to his countrymen: he shares with them only their fatigues and privations: he has more anxieties than they, on their account, in their acts of disobedience, and in their perpetual murmurings.

As to his family. He does not nominate his sons as his successors: he places them without any privileges or distinctions, among the obscure sons of Levi; they are not even admitted into the sacerdotal authority. Unlike all other fathers, Moses withdraws them from public view, and deprives them of the means of obtaining glory and favour. Samuel and Eli assign a part of their paternal authority to their sons, and permit them even to abuse it; but the sons of Moses, in the wilderness, are only the simple carriers of the tabernacle: like all the other sons of Kohath, if they even dare to raise the veil which covers the sacred furniture, the burden of which they carry, death is denounced against them.

-Where can we find more complete disinterestedness than in Moses? Is not his the character of an upright man, who has the general good, not his own interests, at heart; of a man who submissively acquiesces in the commands of God, without resistance and without demur?

When I consider these several things; when I reflect on all the

ministry of Moses,-on his life, on his death, on his character, on his abilities, and his success,-I am powerfully convinced that he was the messenger of God. If you consider him only as an able legislator,— as a Lycurgus, as a Numa,--his actions are inexplicable. We find not in him the affections, the interests, the views, which usually belong to the human heart. The simplicity, the harmony, the verity of this natural character are gone: they give place to an incoherent union of ardour and imposture; of daring and of timidity; of incapacity and genius; of cruelty and sensibility. No! Moses was inspired by God. He received from God the law which he left his countrymen. These five books, in which it is contained, together with their history, were written under the superintendence of God:-they contain His Word.' pp. 211-214; 225, 226.

Art. III. 1. Ornithological Dictionary of British Birds. By Colonel G. Montagu, F.L.S. Second Edition. With a Plan of Study, and many new Articles and original Observations. By James Rennie, A.M. 8vo. pp. lx. 592. Price 21s. London. 1831.

2. Insect Miscellanies. 12mo. pp. 426.

Price 4s. 6d. London. 1831.

HAD we intended anything further than a brief description of the general character and qualities of these works, we should not, of course, have placed together a dictionary of birds, and a common-place book of observations on the natural history of insects. As, however, the two publications are compiled or edited by the same individual, and as we have no purpose beyond that of general criticism, we may venture to consult our own convenience by placing them under one head.

The first of these volumes contains the whole of Colonel Montagu's Dictionary, with large and valuable additions, both from the papers of that active and accurate observer himself, and from the still more accurate and extensive researches of the Editor. If it were practicable, it could hardly be expedient to give an abstract of the contents of a dictionary; and details are the less necessary in this case, since the first edition has been long before the public, and since Mr. Rennie has made himself honourably known as a patient and skilful investigator of nature. We must, indeed, express our regret, that he should have disfigured the new edition, by an ill-natured and, as it appears to us, exceedingly absurd attack on the systems and phraseology of certain eminent modern naturalists. The 'Quinary System and the doctrine of Types, may be, for aught we know, altogether visionary; but we are quite sure that they are exceedingly ingenious, and that, if they should ultimately fail to command general assent, they will, in the mean time, have stimulated inquiry, and opened up new and striking views of the economy of creation. The typical or normal distinction supplies a most

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convenient method of scientific exposition; and the attempt to identify it with the atheistic archetypes of Robinet, is pitifulwe had almost said, malignant. Mr. Rennie has been recently appointed to a professorship in King's College:-can this ultra sensitiveness have any connexion with that promising appointment? We are, however, glad to turn from this miserable business to matter more attractive; and the following extract will shew the vigilance with which Mr. Rennie observes, and the interesting manner in which he describes.

In a colony of bank-swallows, near Charlton, in Kent, consisting of more than a hundred pairs, not more than two or three pairs of sparrows have settled; I say "settled", because they appear to live on terms of good neighbourhood with the original colonists, as I have watched them for hours passing and repassing without the least indication of hostility, which amongst birds soon shews itself in tones of insult and defiance, and by incessant skirmishing and bickerings. How differently these same bank-swallows treated a poor cuckoo, I had an opportunity of witnessing, while observing their good fellowship with the sparrows. The cuckoo was flying quietly along, certainly meditating no harm against the swallows, and not even poaching on their domain by hawking for flies, inasmuch as he prefers a breakfast of caterpillars, which the swallows never touch; nevertheless, the instant he appeared, the tocsin was sounded, and every swallow in the colony darted out of the holes to pounce upon the intruder, whom they beat most unmercifully with bill and wing, till they drove him from their boundaries. The sparrows, meanwhile, sat at the mouths of their holes with the utmost nonchalance as spectators altogether unconcerned in the affray. I have mentioned this harmonious consociality of the bank-swallows and the sparrows, the rather, because we meet with anecdotes in books, of obstinate contests for possession between sparrows and other species of swallows. Avicenna, and afterwards Albertus Magnus, tell us, that when a sparrow takes forcible possession of the nest of a window-swallow, there ensues determined battle between the proprietors and the invaders, in which the latter usually come off in the first instance victorious, from their cunningly remain ing in the nest. The swallows, however, take care to be revenged; for, summoning in their companions to assist them, they bring a quantity of the mortar which they use in building their nests, and closing up the entrance, entomb the sparrows alive. The same story is given by Rzaczynski: and Batgouski, the jesuit, affirms that he was an eyewitness of the circumstance; while Linnæus, who was much too credulous of such matters, states it as a fact ascertained. M. Montbeillard, on the contrary, says, that the instances which he has witnessed of contests of this kind give no countenance to the story. He observed the swallows, indeed, return frequently in the course of the summer, to quarrel with the sparrows, and often wheeling about for a day or two; but they never attempted to enter the nests, or to shut them up with mortar. The whole account, indeed, I should say, is a romancing legend; for the sparrows, with their strong bills, would instantly de

molish the thickest wall which the swallows could build, instead of quietly permitting themselves to be imprisoned, as the above veracious writers have chosen to report.'

The Insect Miscellanies' form the third volume of that interesting and valuable series which makes a part of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge', and which, under the titles of Insect Architecture', 'Insect Transformations', and 'Insect 'Miscellanies', comprises a larger mass of sound practical information on the subject of Entomology, than is to be found elsewhere within thrice the compass. There is no rubbish; no attempt to bolster up a favourite system by the invention or perversion of facts; no flourish or fine writing; none of that intolerable prosing which makes the comprehensive and invaluable work of Kirby and Spence so heavy and unreadable: all is clear and compressed, shrewd and business-like. Nor could we name, on any subject, three volumes of similar size, so thoroughly charged with instruction.

The present volume treats of the Senses of Insects; their Food; their Social and Domestic Habits; and concludes with some valuable directions relating to the collection and preservation of insects, and an account of the various systematic arrangements. The volume on Insect Architecture was noticed at some length in our pages * *. We shall now confine ourselves to a single specimen of Insect Transformations, as furnished by the natural history of the bombyx or silk-worm.

This wonderful little workman proceeds from a yellow egg of about the size of a grain of mustard-seed, which is deposited, during the summer, by a greyish moth of the genus phalænæ. When first hatched, it appears as a small black worm about a quarter of an inch in length, weighing the hundredth part of a grain. In the course of thirty days, it will consume above an ounce of mulberry leaves; that is to say, it devours in vegetable substance about 60,000 times its own primitive weight. Within the same period, its length increases to about forty times its first measurement, and its weight is multiplied many thousand fold. A hundred worms just hatched weigh about a single grain; and, on attaining their greatest size and weight, 9500 grains. But even this increase of weight is inconsiderable, when compared with that of the caterpillar of the goat-moth, which is said to become 72,000 times heavier than when newly hatched. This fact is not, however, more wonderful than that an ostrich nine feet high and weighing 150lbs., should be produced from an egg about the size of a cocoa-nut, or that an acorn should produce a lofty oak. The phenomenon of growth, whether

* Eclectic Review, Third Series, Vol. IV. p. 37. (July 1830.)