The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-17 00:00:00

labours raf_such a man as Audubon, as Captain
Mayne Reid might have called him, a type of your
out-of-door naturalist. But we should conceive it
to be disgraceful and ungrateful on our part to
endeavour to exalt the reputation of such men as
Audubon, by depreciating the value of the fame
acquired by men whom our author has been pleased
to sneer at, as your Closet Naturalists. Who
are those men ? Why, such men as Buffon, and
Cuvier, and Linnmus. Happily, the genius of those
three illustrious men has not remained until nowadays
iu order to be demonstrated. Every educated man
knows the scope and value of theirgreat labours. It
cannot soon be forgotten that until the time of Lin-
naeus there was a bewildering chaos in our ideas of
the whole vegetable kingdom. It cannot speedily
be lost to recollection-that Baron Cuvier may be
said with peculiar truth to have "created a soul
under the ribs of death," and to have evoked from
a world of dry bones a vital and vivifying philoso-
phy. Beyond all, it cannot be passed by as unde-
serving our especial remembrance that it was Buf-
fon who first conceived the notion of becomi▪
ng the
historian of the animal world, and that to that no-
tion we-owe the existence of a work unsurpassed
in the eloquent felicity of its descriptions, and
whi▪
ch must ever be classed—what though there
were a hundred thousand Audubons—among the
treasures of the earth's literature. Here it is, we
conceive, that lies the only blemish in the present
narrative. In its regard we cannot altogether ac-
quit the author of the charge--which we might find
it di▪ fficult to conjecture—of either self-sufficiency
or of affectation. We are fain to regard it as the
latter. However this may be, in all other respects
the book has proved to us eminently delightful.
.Several of its most surprising incidents have been
illustrated by the pencil of William Harvey—whose
embellishments to the tale number a dozen alto-
gether. As the frontispiece, we find the curious
sketch of an ingenious portion of the narrative,
entitled "The Chain of Destruction," the links of
which are formed by the tarantula killing the
humming bird, and the the chamelion tarantula,
and the scorpion lizard the chamelion, and the
snake the scorpion lizard, and the kite the snake,
and the eagle the kite and—last link of all—Basil
the eagle. Although, of course, nothing 'compar-
able to his " Scalp Hunters," or to his " Rifle
Rangers" being, in fact, of a less pretentious cha-
racter, the " Boy Hunters," scarcely less than
those more important productions, and scarcely less
than the more alluring " Desert Home," reveals on
the part of its author, the keenest observation of
Nature, and a really delightful vivacity of i▪
magi-
nation.

NEW MUSIC.
" Pray for me, Gabrielle." Song. Dedicated,
by permission, to the Countess de Jarnac. The
Words and Music by Ernest Reinhold. Boosey
and Co.

Like all the productions of this talented author,
the present bears the impress of taste and skill.
The words aro touching and tender, and the accom-
panying music falls winningly on the ear. The
plaintive pleading of the forlorn exile to his lost
love will be repeated by many a melodious voice,
for seldom have we heard a ballad more calculated
to become a general favourite from its sweetness
and simplicity.