1830.]

a probability, however remote, that a universal language of Natural History might be ultimately introduced.

We might now here enter more minutely into the errors and mistakes of many of our scientific natural Historians, but as the Linnaan system is one of the chief to which reference is, of course, still made, a few observations on some of the ornithological errors of Linnæus will be sufficient for our purpose, and enable the student most readily to discover the failures and mistakes in the nomenclature, by other naturalists.

Linnæus, we find, arranged BIRDS under six divisions, or orders. The first order he named Accipitres or Hawks. Of course the uninitiated would conclude from this title, that the birds of this tribe have the forms, or at least manners, of the hawk; but a little inquiry will show that this is not the fact: for, although a large number of the birds arranged under the genus Falco, might suit tolerably well the order accipitres, the Vulturine and Owl tribes require some other characteristic, in common with the Hawks, to entitle them to be placed under the same general head. Hence the term RAPTORES, Snatching Birds, or Birds of Prey, has been, with much more appropriateness, applied to this order or family by Mr. VIGORS.

The second order, Pica or the PIES, and the sixth order, named Passeres or the SPARROWS, convey neither of them, by their names, any just idea of their general forms or habits, and are therefore not suited for ordinal terms. To obviate these errors, Mr. VIGORS places the two orders together, and calls them by the comprehensive term of INSESSORES or Perchers, perching being a habit to which, with very few exceptions, they all conform. It is true many other birds, besides these, perch, but then those birds have some other more striking characteristic by which they may be distinguished; such for instance are the Raptores.

The third order of Linnæus is denominated Anseres or GEESE; but here, also, a generic term is used instead of an ordinal one, and which by no means conveys any general habit of this tribe of birds; hence the term NATATORES or Swimmers has been given to it by Mr. VIGORS, the superiority of which to Anseres cannot for a moment be disputed.

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To the fourth order, Gralla or WADERS, the same objections do not apply, as the habit of wading is the distinguishing characteristic of this tribe. Mr. VIGORS has merely altered the term to GRALLATORES, as more decidedly and correctly expressing the term waders.

To the fifth order, Gallinæ or Gallinaceous Birds, that is, birds of the common cock and hen tribe, the same objection as to the first, second, third, and sixth orders may be made, namely, that the term Gallina does not express any habit by which the whole tribe may be, at once, distinguished and known. Mr. Vigors has therefore given the term RASORES or Scratchers (that is, birds that obtain their food by scratching the ground) to this tribe, the striking propriety of which cannot, it is presumed, be disputed.

We have thus shown a few of the leading imperfections of the Linnæan system of Ornithology; and we have also shown with how much more correctness and precision the terms which Mr. VIGORS has proposed will apply to the large Quinary Families of Birds. Upon examining this gentleman's quinary sub-divisions, we find the same tact and science exemplified: thus, in the Insessores, perhaps the most numerous family of the feathered race, certainly the most interesting in consequence of their songs, we find the Dentirostres, or Birds with toothed bills; the Conirostres, or Birds with Conic Bills; the Fissirostres, or Birds with cleft or notched bills; the Teniurostres, or Birds with slender bills; and the Scansores, or climbing birds. If therefore the quinary arrangement should not, at least to a certain extent, prevail, it will be no fault of the learned and ingenious propounder of it: for his system, although not perfect, is unquestionably the best which has yet been offered to the scientific world. Not one of the least of its recommendations, in addition to its comprehensive perspicuity, is, that its terms can be readily converted into the English or any other European language, by a slight change only in their terminations; thus doing for the science of Ornithology what has been done for that of Chemistry; and sending, it is devoutly to be hoped, innumerable and anomalous terms to their everlasting repose a consummation most sincerely to be desired.

Mr. UREAN, Kenton-st. May 15. The Gowrie treason," being HE mysterious transaction called noticed at some length in Sir Walter Scott's History of Scotland, I am induced to trouble you with a few remarks on this dark and bloody event. It seems very unreasonable now to receive the evidence on which the unfortunate Ruthvens and Logan were condemned, when those who lived at the time rejected it, and maintained their opinion, notwithstanding the utmost endeavours of King James and his courtiers to induce them "to declair their satisfaction of the truth" of the conspiracy. They were no doubt very disloyal and seditious to assert their disbelief in his Majesty's teeth, and ought to have considered with Scott,* that "remanda non sunt arcana imperii;" yet it appears a just reflection of the Author of the "Secret History of King James," who says that, as water runs always purest the nearer it is to the fountain, it is to be inferred that those who live nearest the periods of transactions must have the clearest knowledge of their truth. "The Scots," he adds, "gave so little credit to this pretended conspiracy, that they would speak both slightly and despightfully of it, and those some of the wisest of that nation too." And so far from the extraordinary honour and rewards which were bestowed on the actors of this tragedy, having any tendency to procure a belief in the existence of a conspiracy, "it made the English as little believe it as the Scots themselves did."

In the room to which his Majesty was decoyed, there stood a person in armour, and the King nained three different individuals, each of whom he successively alleged was the Two of the accused imvery man. mediately proved their innocence, when he swore that the other, a servant of Lord Gowrie, was the traitor. The poor man shewed that he was in Dundee when his master was killed, and proceeded to disprove the accusation; but when on his way, he had his throat cut, and his body thrown into a cornfield! Andrew Henderson, fortunately for his Majesty, avowed himself the person, but wisely steered clear of the charge of "art and part" in the conspiracy, by declaring his total igno

"Staggering State of Scots Statesmen."

[May,

rance of the purpose for which he was there placed.

In this pretended conspiracy Logan of Lasterrick, a barony near Edinburgh, was nine years after his death implicated by the production of a series of letters, said to have been written by him in maturing the plot. These papers have no allusion to the conspiracy at Perth, but allude to an attempt to secure the King's person at Fastcastle, a seat of Lasterrick, in the county of Berwick! Nor were these documents originals, but appeared during the proceedings in different numbers and forms, some being withdrawn, others produced, and subsequently enlarged and altered! In the agonies of torture, Sprot, the villainous accuser, confessed this forgery; but the Earl of Dunbar, who by the forfeiture got most of Logan's estates, assured the wretch that his wife and family should be provided for; when, "being resolved to die, and not having a wish to live," he adhered to his first confession, and to prevent his recantation, he was next day hanged, although it is said he had a promise of pardon.

The Earl had a more difficult task with the Lords of the articles; but "he travelled so earnestly to overcome their hard opinions of the process," that they at last happily acknowledged themselves convinced, and the cruel sentence, by which the ghastly head of the old baron was displayed on the city gate, his estates forfeited, and the very name proscribed, was finally passed.

It is difficult to imagine why such a writer as Malcolm Laing should, on no other evidence than the notorious forgeries, the mock letters of Logan," as Pinkerton calls them, reverse his first opinion, and pronounce Logan guilty. It is as astonishing that in Perth, where the traditional opinion has always absolved the gallant Ruthvens from the charge of attempted treason and regicide, a belief in their guilt should begin to be entertained. For myself, having deeply studied, along with the general history of the two families, this most mysterious transaction, I must come to the opposite conclusion, and pronounce my opinion, that these unfortunate persons were guiltless of the crimes imputed to them.

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Again,

"The thieves would never have been caught if the Pasha had not adopted the mode of making the villages adjacent to their haunts responsible for their spoliations."-ii. 505.

Every body knows that Hermes or Mercury, or Thoth, was the favourite god of the Britons; and that Mr. Bowles thinks a central column at Abury to have represented that deity. The following passage is favourable to that gentleman's hypothesis:

"At Phare there remained in the time of Pausanias a spacious Agora of the ancient fashion, containing a bearded Hermes Agoræus, in marble, of no great size, which was oracular, and a fountain called Hama, which, as well as the fish contained in it, were sacred to the same deity. Near the statue there were thirty quadrangular stones, to each of which the name of a deity was attached, according to the most ancient practice of the Greeks."—ii. 158.

There is an assimilation to the sale of horses at Smithfield Market, in the following passage:

"The Agora of Elisa was called the Hippodrome, because serving for the exercise of horses; it had several stoæ intersected with streets."-i. 222.

Kistvaens occur.

"I cross the river at Karnesi, and a little beyond I observe on the road some ancient sepulchres of the simplest kind, that is to say, four slabs of stone set edgewise in the earth."-ii. 261.

The keystoned arch is far more ancient than has been supposed. There appears to have been in the most remote periods three different kinds; viz. one of stones projecting over each other, and cut within into curves; another by placing two stones against each other in a sharp angle, and bevilling them off at the top, so as to meet together in a broad surface, and support each other, care being taken to keep them united by the pressure of an abutment. The third is that which occurs in the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenæ, and is thus described by our author:

[May,

"There were about forty courses of masonry in the whole building; of these the lower are about one foot ten inches in height, and composed of stones from four to seven feet long; above the great window the corners are narrower than in the lower part of the building. This is the only complete specimen remaining of a mode of construction peculiar to the early Greeks, and which was not uncommon among them. Its principle is that of a wall resisting a superincumbent weight, and deriving strength and coherence from the weight itself, which in fact seems to be no other than the principle of the arch. The same motive which suggested the circular form to the Cyclopean architect, or other inventor of this kind of subterraneous building, induced him also to curve the sides vertically, as they derived from that form an additional power of resistance to the lateral pressure. The upper stone of the building has been removed, and lies in fragments on one side of the aperture made by its removal, which admits a view of the chamber, from the surface of the ground above the treasury. This upper stone, which is hollowed below to form the apex of the parabolic curve of the chamber, was laid upon the upper course, like that course upon the next. In this part of the construction, therefore, the Treasury seems to have been built upon a principle different from that of the Treasury of Minyas at the Boeotian Orchomenus, of which there are remains sufficient to show that there was a great resemblance between the two buildings, as might be presumed from their having been nearly of the same age, and intended for the same purpose. Pausanias describes the Treasury of Minyas as a circular edifice of stone, having a summit not very pointed; and he adds, that the upper stone of all was said to hold together the whole structure. The first part of his description appears to me to indicate that the Orchomenian building was not subterraneous; the second part, that it was not terminated above in a keystone; the latter peculiarity being, perhaps, a consequence of the former, and the building differing in both from the subheavy external pressure was met by a lateral terranean Treasury at Mycenae, where the

as well as a horizontal arch, and where the upper stone was simply superimposed, and kept in its place by the earth which lay upon it. It would seem, from the words of Pausanias, that the Treasury at Orchomenus was a more obtuse cone than that of Mycence."

To this account we beg to add, from the splendid new edition of Stuart's Athens, vol. IV. that the reader will there see plates which illustrate this curious remain upon a large scale, and in a most satisfactory manner. Whatever may be the question concerning