image, I apprehend,) was posted, received a wound in the breast. The Delphic oracle directed him to repair to Leuce, an island in the Euxine sea, to be cured by Ajax. On his return, he declared that he had seen Achilles, who resided there with Helen, Patroclus, Antilochus, and the two Ajaxes; and a message from Helen, which he delivered to the poet Stesichorus of Himera, by whom some reflections had been cast on her, probably in his Destruction of Troy, was, they said, the occasion of his writing a palinode or recant

ation.

This island of Achilles, which is mentioned by Euripides and by many other antient authors, was formed by mud from rivers; and perhaps has since been connected with the continent of Europe. But, whatever it may now be, for the spot has not been explored, it was originally small, and is described as desert and woody, as abounding in living creatures, and much frequented by aquatic birds, which were regarded as the miuisters of the hero, fanning his grove with their wings, and refreshing the ground with drops, as it were of rain, from their bodies. He was said to be visited there by Pro tesilaus, and several of his friends, who had been likewise released from the regions of Pluto; to appear sometimes; and oftener to be heard, playing on his lyre and accompanying it with a voice divinely clear. A long and narrow peninsula in the same sea was called The Course of Achilles; being the place where he was reputed to take his exercise of running.

It does not often happen that antient fiction can, as in this instance, be traced to its source; and scepticism or incredulity is frequently the result of difficulty in discriminating true history from its alloy. Mr. Bryant has contended, that the two poems of Homer are mere fables, and that no such war, no such place as Troy, has ever existed. Having made a large collection of idle and absurd stories from different authors about Jupiter and Leda, and Helen (whom he will not allow to have been carried away from Sparta by Paris), and several other persons concerned, he declares, and nobody, I imagine, will dissent from a position of so great latitude, that "The account of the Trojan war, as delivered by Homer and other Grecian writers, is attended with so many instances of inconsistency and so many contradictions, that it is an insult to reason to afford it any credit."

In the description, says the same learned person, of the siege of Troy and the great events with which it was accompanied, Homer is very particular and precise. The situation of the city is pointed out as well as the camp of the Grecians," and various objects," with the course and fords of the river, are distinctly marked, so that the very landscape presents itself to the eye of the reader. The poet also" mentions" several" subsequent "events-in medias res non secus ac notas auditorem rapit-" all which "casual references seem to have been portions of a traditional history well known in the timé of Homer, but as they are introduced almost undesignedly, they are generally attended with a great semblance of truth. For such incidental and partial intimations are seldom to be found in Romance and Fable." Who, on reading these remarks, would suspect it to

be

be the scope of the author, to prove the whole story of Troy as ideal as a fairy-tale ?

I will not enter here on a particular examination of the arguments used by Mr. Bryant on this occasion. Some of them I shall be obliged, though unwilling, to notice as we proceed. It may, however, be now mentioned, that among other novel opinions, for which I refer to his Dissertation, he maintains, that the ground-work of the Ilias, if it had any, was foreign to the country on which we are employed; that the history never related, but has been borrowed and transferred, to it; that in short, the original poem of Troy, the parent of the Ilias, was an Egyptian composition. I shall add a companion or two to this notable discovery. A disciple of Epicurus undertook to prove the Ilias to be entirely an allegory; and I have somewhere read, that it was not first written in Greek, but is a translation from the Celtic language.

I subjoin the very different opinion of a respectable writer in the Antient Universal History on the same subject. "The name of King Priam will ever be memorable on account of the war which happened in his reign; a war famous to this day for the many princes of great, prowess and renown concerned in it, the battles fought, the length of the siege, the destruction of the city, and the endless colonies planted in divers parts of the world by the conquered as well as the conquerors." Truly, (says my author,) the siege and taking of Troy are transactions so well attested, and have left so remarkable an epocha in history, that no man of sense can call them in question."

A map of the Troas, and of the adjacent country, according to D'Anville, is prefixed to this publication; the whole of which is well calculated to introduce the classical student to a more intimate acquaintance with the Trojan plain, and to enable him. to derive additional pleasure from the beauties of Homer, by acquiring a just and accurate knowlege of the country which that prince of poets has immortalized.

ART. VIII. Supplement II. to the General Synopsis of Birds. 4to. 21. 78. 6d. Boards. Leigh and Sotheby. 1801.

T

Man.

HIS second supplement to Dr. Latham's General Synopsis of Birds, ushered into the world without a single prefatory line, confirms our idea of the general character of the work, and adds to the former rich accumulation of materials, without any intimation of reducing them to a regular and well compacted system. The descriptions of Vaillant, Bruce, Daudin, Sonnini, and other recent travellers, together with specimens transmitted from New Holland, &c. have furnished our indefatigable ornithologist with three hundred and seven species, or

See M. R. Vols. Ixv. lxvii. lxxi. lxxiv. lxxvii.

varieties,

varieties, since his last publication.-The volume is embellished' with coloured figures of twenty-four kinds, of which the Superb Menura is, perhaps, the most striking :-but, as an account and drawing of this remarkable bird have lately appeared in the 6th volume of the Linnéan Transactions, we shall confine our extracts of novel rarities to the Plantain-eater and Sociable Grosbeak.

'Genus XI. PLANTAIN-EATER.-Bill stout, triangular, the upper mandible elevated at the base above the crown; both mandibles dentated on the edges.-Nostrils in the middle of the bill.-Tongue entire, and stout.-Toes placed thrce before and one behind.

Musophaga violacea, Musafresser, Schr. der Berl. Gesell. ix. S. 16. taf. 1.

Royal Cuckow, Lev. Mus. pl. in p. 167?

This curious and hitherto non-descript bird is nineteen inches in length, of which the tail is six inches and one third: the bill from the tip to the gape is one inch and an half, and very singularly shaped, especially the upper mandible, being nearly triangular, losing its attachment at the back part, where it is elevated, and hangs over the crown; the colour of the bill is yellow, growing red towards the end, and the edges of both mandibles are dentated; the tongue not unlike that of a Parrot in shape: irides brown: the top of the head is purple lore violet: beneath each eye is a line of white; eye-lids purple: the neck, breast, and body violet; wings the same: the prime quills purple in the middle the tail longish, cuneiform, obtuse, the same colour as the quills: legs dusky black, and very strong.

This beautiful bird is found on the plains near the borders of rivers, in the province of Acra. in Guinea, and is said to live principally on the fruit of the plantain ; is very rare, for notwithsthanding every pains he could take, M. Isert was not able to obtain more than one specimen.

I have ventured to assimilate this with the Royal Cuckow of the Leverian Museum, as it seems to agree in every point, except the disposition of the toes, which in that figure are placed two before and two behind. This however, may be reconciled, by supposing the bird capable of placing the toes in the two different positions at will, a circumstance observed likewise in respect to the Touraco: however, the assertion of M. Isert, that the toes were situated as his figure represents, ought to weigh with us, especially as he seems to be the only one who professes to have seen the bird.'

Loxia socia, Ind. Orn. i. p. 381. 35.

Tisserin republicain, Daud. Orn. ii. p. 397.

Loxia, Paterson's Cap. p. 133. t. in p. 126.-Bird and nest.

* M. Isert says the tail consists of nine feathers only, which might be the case with his specimen, but as we know no bird in which the tail feathers are not even in number, I should suspect that this bird also may have at least ten feathers, or even more."

+ Musa paradisiaca et sapientum.'

'Size

Size of a Bulfinch length five inches and a half: bill and lore black the general colour of the plumage rufous brown; beneath, yellow region of the ear yellowish: tail short: legs brown.

6

Inhabits the interior parts of the Cape of Good Hope, building in vast numbers, in one society, on the Mimosa Trees, uniting their several nests under one common roof; and it is said that not fewer than 800 or 1,000 form together one community; not perhaps that this circumstance happens in one year, for they are observed to add to the size of the nest from year to year, till the tree, unable to bear any further addition of weight, necessarily falls beneath its load, when the birds are in course constrained to search a new place of. abode. Mr. Paterson, on examining one of these, found many entrances, each of which formed a regular street, with nests on both sides, at about two inches distance from each other. The material with which these birds build, is called Boshman's Grass; and the seeds of it said to be their principal food; but the wings and legs of insects have been likewise observed in the nests.

M. Daudin supposes the Totty Grosbeak to be a variety, which I must leave for further investigation.

This species not only is observed to make the group of nests on the Acacia Trees, but likewise on the Aloë Dichotoma, which grows to the stature of a tree of no inconsiderable size; for Mr. Barrow* mentions the circumstance of one which had steps cut out on its trunk, to enable a person to climb up to obtain the nest of these birds.'

Of species already noted or described in the Synopsis or Index ornithologicus, many are here again introduced on account of additional remarks, of various merit and importance, though generally calculated to stimulate the industry or gratify the curiosity of the naturalist.-The following trait of a Carrion Crow deserves to be quoted:

The manners of this species are well known; but a singular anecdote of one of these has come to my knowledge, attested by Mr. Edwards. In March 1783, a Crow was observed to build a nest on the vane of the top of the Exchange at Newcastle, and the more re• markable, as the spindle on which the nest was constructed, being fixed to the vane, moves with it, and it appeared very singular to view it in windy weather, when the nest in course turned round to every point of the compass. A small copper-plate was engraven with a representation of the circumstance, of the size of a watch paper; and so pleased were the inhabitants with it, that as many of them were sold as produced to the engraver the sum of ten pounds.'

We are informed that the annual custom-duties paid for Larks at Leipsic amount to twelve thousand crowns, at the rate of 21d. sterling for every sixty birds. In a country, however, in which many geese are devoured, we surely need not to be told that the business of a feeder of these birds is sometimes

considerable ;-nor, as Mr. had already procured a niche in the London Gazette, should Dr. L. have thrust him into another in his more durable quarto. Sedet æternùmque sedebit infelix.

The author justly disputes a common notion concerning the Short-cared Owl:

In respect to the received opinion of its having the capability of erecting a single feather of the crown at will, the fact is much to be doubted; indeed it has a sort of tuft or series of several feathers running backwards, and springing out of a yellowish line above each eye, which goes over the crown of the head, and these tufts the bird erects mostly in a quiescent state, never much more than a quarter of an inch in height, and never so much as to be perpendicular; when alarmed, they are ever depressed.'

We wish that he had been equally sceptical with respect to the fascinating powers of the Volatile Thrush; or that he had, at least, cited his authorities for the alleged fact. To a rational inquirer, it is no great consolation to add that a bird which practises magic on a worm is, in turn, enchanted by a snake. Yet, if our progress through pages of monotonous description has not often been cheered or animated by the rays of criticism or philosophy, it has been as seldom repressed by the fooleries of fable.

In page 127, we meet with a manly avowal of a mistake relative to the Grakle:

In this work, it is mentioned from M. Buffon, that the inhabitants of the island of Bourbon having imported some of these birds for the purpose of destroying the Grasshoppers, the birds increased so fast, that after having destroyed the insects, they attacked not only the fruits, but young Pigeons, and became a greater scourge than the Grasshoppers had been before. We learn, however, that this assertion is not precisely the fact, and most likely M. Buffon had been misinformed; for M. Duplessin, who gave it as his opinion, that these birds might be useful to be introduced into that part of Spain situated towards Africa, by way of destroying the Locusts there, had been many years resident in the island of Bourbon, where he had seen those birds introduced, that indeed they have been much multiplied in that island, but so far from themselves being considered as a nuisance, the laws for their preservation are still in force.'

As writers of name had confounded the eggs of the GoatSucker with those of the Cuckow, it is properly remarked that the latter are smaller by one half, and very much disproportioned to the producing bird.

We are here enabled to lay before our readers some proof of the possibility of keeping Humming-birds alive, in a climate different from their own:

Gen. Syn. ii. p. 459.'