Professor RASK also advocates the making of the Roman substitutes as nearly consonant as possible to the original;—“in his vero, me quidem judice, hoc præceptum semper servandum, ut quam proxime ad mentem ipsius nationis exprimantur ejus literæ." On this score the JONESIAN far surpasses the GILCHRISTIAN scheme of vowels, the long and short vowels of the same class being expressed by the same character:-but we must allow Mr. TREVELYAN to speak for himself.

"Sir WM. JONES' plan is systematic and complete in all its parts, so that in every case in which an analogy exists between different sounds, a corresponding analogy will be found to pervade the signs by which they are represented, Thus the long sound of a is á; of i, í; and of u, ú; and the diphthong ai, which is compounded of a and i, is represented by those letters, and au (ow) which is compounded of a and u, by au. The consequence of this strict attention to preserve an analogy in the sign corresponding to the variations in the sound is, that the acquisition of the Alphabet is greatly facilitated to the learner, who in fact has to make himself acquainted with only five elementary signs which are the representatives of as many original sounds, and the remaining five are only elongated form or composites of these.

"In Dr. GILCHRIST's plan, with a single exception, there is no analogy whatever between the long and short forms of the vowels, and between the diphthongs and their component vowels. Thus in his system a is the long form of u, ee of i, and the diphthong ai is represented by ue, and au by u o. It is needless to dilate on the confusion which this want of system must produce in the mind of every learner, No help is here provided for him, and instead of being guided from step to step by a change in the form of the character, sufficient to distinguish the modification in the sound, while enough is retained of the original letter to mark the elementary connexion, he is perplexed by a variety of characters between which no kind of analogy is capable of being traced. In short, instead of having only five signs to get by heart, he has no less than nine. In tracing the analogy between cor responding modifications of sound, this plan is worse than if no assistance were afforded him. In this eccentric system of letters long vowels are actually divorced from their partners and so disguised as to render it impossible to recognize the original connection between them, and diphthongs are in like manner kidnapped from their parent vowels, and disfigured worse than Gypsey children. Who would suppose that u is the legitimate husband of a, that ee is the devoted wife of i, that ue is the interesting offspring of a and i, and uo the eldest hope of a and u. This is not a system of orthography, but if I may be allowed to invent a word, of kakography; of confusion, mystification and absurdity. It is singular that when a man sat down with a carte blanche before him to invent a system of letters, he was not able to devise something better than this; and it is still more so that having the labours of his learned predecessor Sir W. JONES to profit by, when he altered he should have altered so much for the worse.

"Another advantage of Sir WILLIAM JONES' plan is that, besides being complete in itself, owing to the perfect analogy which exists between the different letters, it bears a strict correspondence throughout to the great Indian or Deva Nágarí alphabet. All the alphabets derived from the latter are very systematic, and a scheme which is otherwise cannot properly represent them. But Sir W. JONES does it exactly, as will be seen from the following table:

above
in

"The natives of India are therefore already quite familar with the idea of dis. tinguishing the modification of sound by a corresponding modification of sign, and when they see the same plan adopted in the anglified version of the alphabet, they immediately recognize the propriety of it, and enter into the spirit of the scheme. As the new orthography is mainly intended for the people of India, the circumstance of its being entirely coincident with their preconceived feelings and ideas must be allowed to be an advantage of no small importance.

"It is hardly necessary to observe, that no kind of analogy exists between Dr. GILCHRIST's and the Indian Deva Nágarí alphabet. When an Indian reads Sir WILLIAM JONES' alphabet, he sees a long á immediately succeeding the short a; a long the short i, and a long ú the short u, (the long vowel being in each case distinguished by a mark as in the Sanscrit) which is just what his previous knowledge would lead him to expect; but when he comes to Dr. GILCHRIST's plan, he finds a following u, and ee following i. What therefore would be his opinion of the comparative merits of the two systems? Would he not say, that one is in every respect as complete as the alphabet of the gods (Deva Nágarí), while the other is an inexplicable mass of confusion.

"Another advantage attending Sir WILLIAM JONES' system is, that it is not only analogous to, but is the very system itself which is used in expressing Latin and all its derivations; that is Italian, Spanish, French, &c. It is true that in England we do not pronounce Latin in this way, but this is only because we have barbarized it, and made it accord with our Saxon pronunciation. Even in Scotland and Ireland, to say nothing of Continental Europe, they read Latin exactly in the way in which it is now proposed to read Hindusthání. This entire coincidence of the new Hindusthání orthography with the orthography of the learned language of the whole of Europe, and with that of most of its colloquial languages, is a point of great importance. Even in the present age its advantage will be felt, in so far as the learned all over Europe, and in most cases the vulgar also, will by this means obtain direct access to our Indian Literature; and what is still more deserving of consideration, a foundation will be laid for the establishment in due time of an uniform system of orthography throughout the world. This is an object, which, however distant the prospect of accomplishing it may be, no man who has the slightest regard for posterity, should ever lose sight of :-next to the establishment of an universal language, that grand desideratum of the philosopher and the philanthropist, the establishment of an universal system of orthography will most tend to the production of unrestricted freedom of intercourse between all the families of the human race; and the one has also a direct tendency to bring about the other. Now if GILCHRIST's plan were to be generally maintained in India, so far from having advanced a step towards this grand result, we should make a decidedly retrograde movement, and the proceeding would be tantamount to shutting the door to the possibility of an uniform system of writing and printing being ever adopted in the eastern and western hemispheres. GILCHRIST's plan is utterly abhorrent from the Roman family of languages, and it does not even coincide with the English, as will be shown hereafter.

"Sir WILLIAM JONES' plan has a simple character for every simple sound,while in Dr. GILCHRIST's simple sounds are in three instances expressed by double letters

[ee, oo and oo]. This, to say the best of it, is an extremely clumsy contrivance, and in the business of nations and course of ages it would lead to an immense unnecessary expenditure of time and money. That this is the case, may be seen by taking the example of a single sentence,

Bees tees moorghabee huen toomharee peechee,

which in Sir WILLIAM JONES' orthography would be,

Bís tís murghábí hain tumhárí píchi.

"There are 37 letters in this sentence written according to Dr. GILCHRIST's plan, and only 30 if it be written according to JONES; that is to say, in only 6 words the former exceeds the latter by no less than 7 letters. Apply this to a book, and conceive the waste of types, paper, and valuable time which must result from it. Supposing an octavo volume, printed according to Sir WILLIAM JONES' plan, to consist of 500 pages, and each page to contain on an average 304 words, the total number of words in the volume would be 1,52,000; and if the same volume were printed according to Dr. GILCHRIST's plan, then at the rate of 7 additional letters for every 6 words, the number of extra letters will amount to 1,77,000, which would make an addition to the book of 116 pages, and instead of consisting of 500 pages it would consist of 619. Apply this to the entire literature of half the world through a succession of ages, and conceive the result, if you can. If this average is considered to be above the mark, I have no objection to suppose that every six of GILCHRIST's words contain only half the number of double letters which those above instanced do, and at this rate the book printed according to GILCHRIST's plan would exceed what it would be if printed according to Sir WILLIAM JONES' plan by 58 pages.

"Lastly, there are three characters in GILCHRIST's alphabet which do not belong to English or to any other language under the sun which we have ever heard of. These are oo, ue and uo. With the exception of the pupils of Dr. GILCHRIST who, from early associations and respect to their master, may naturally be expected to be admirers of his scheme, these three characters are utterly barbarous to every description of people; and it is therefore impossible for them to secure a general recognition for themselves in the breasts either of Englishmen, European foreigners or Indians. Sir WILLIAM JONES' plan, as has been before stated, contains no arbitrary sounds whatever, but is in every respect in strict accordance with the Latin and Latino-European languages. Even the au, of which no example is to be found in English, is perfectly familiar to every Scotchman and Irishman who knows Latin; and if a youth at Dublin College, or the High School at Edinburgh, were to pronounce causa like cawsa, he would be immediately corrected and told to sound it cousa, and the same of course every where on the continent of Europe. "It should be borne in mind that Sir WILLIAM JONES and Mr. GILCHRIST both drew from the mine of English letters, and that the only difference between them is that one appropriated the dross, while the other culled the pure gold. GILCHRIST chose the most corrupt and imperfect parts of our system, while JONES selected those which were consistent with true principles and coincided with the most perfect alphabets both of the East and West. The in police is almost as well known in English as the double ee in feel. The u in pull is certainly better known than oo, which is pure GILCHRISTIAN. The ú in rule is as familiar as the double oo in cool. The ai in aisle is assuredly far more common than ue, which is another arbitrary sign to be found no where except in the books printed by Dr. GILCHRIST himself. The au in causa (Latin pronunciation) is also better under

stood than uo, which is another Gilchristian hieroglyphic; and even the short a, the stumbling-block of our GILCHRISTIAN friends, is quite as familiar to us as their favourite u, and any body who will take the trouble to look in the English Dictionary, will see it used at the commencement of 500 words like above, about, abound, and so forth."

We have not space to continue our extract, nor does the remainder of the author's reasoning bear upon the precise question at issue. He however mentions one strong fact in support of his object; namely, that the Italian orthography has been adopted by the American missionaries for the language of the Sandwich Islands. To this we may add, that the same as far as regards the vowels is uniformly upheld by Professor RASK of Copenhagen, the celebrated philologist, who has devoted years of study to the fixing of accurate Roman equivalents for the Zend, Arabic, Sanscrit, Armenian, and other alphabets. We recommend his essay "de Pleno Systemate Decem Sibilantium in Linguis Montanis, &c." to the serious attention of all those engaged in similar objects; the following caution applies to the case of the Bengálí and other dialects derived from the Sanscrit stock, in which it has been opposed to the uniform system, that the inherent short vowel having the sound of o could not be represented by a.

"Altera cautela haud parvi momenti est, ubi lingua quædam antiqua quodammodo adhuc vivit, nimirum ne pronunciatione hodierna, si a litera discedat, pro genuina assumta, scripturam antiquæ linguæ ad eam exprimendam depravemus, vocumque etymologias turbemus.”

The above remark of course equally opposes any reform of the spelling of an established language like the English or the French to suit the modern pronunciation. His concluding paragraph will afford encouragement to those who calculate upon the eventual substitution of the Roman characters for those of India, although he is far from anticipating any such effect even for the limited country, Armenia, (Christian though it be) to whose language his essay refers.

"His observatis, haud ita difficile est scripturam Europæam cuivis linguæ peregrinæ accommodare, atque ita quidem ut ipsa gens, si per commercium Europæorum tale systema existere resciverit, immensum ambitum literaturæ gentium Europæorum intellexerit, fructum, oblectationem, gloriam inde redundantes consideraverit, haud reluctanter id suum facere velit, saltem viri docti non solum Voces singulas accuratè et sine ulla confusione citare, sed quodlibet scriptum gentis ita trans-scribere et facili negotio typis exprimere; immo trans-scribendo commoda quædam pensa in studio suo hand parum levari poterunt." Commentatio &c. Aut. E. Rask, Hafnia, 1832.

Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

We observe that this Society has come to the determination of publishing its future Transactions in the form of a Journal in octavo, to appear once in three months, price 6s. We cannot but feel that this resolution strengthens greatly the arguments in favor of the plan adopted and pursued now for nearly six years by Captain HERBERT and ourselves, for whatever can be urged in support of a quarterly journal-the early appearance of papers, the cheap and convenient form for circulation, &c. will apply more forcibly to a monthly periodical. This is the only form in which the lucubrations of the French Asiatic Society—a Society yielding to none in the erudition and activity of its members--have hitherto appeared.

The cover of the present number contains the prospectus of the new journal.

X.--Catalogue of Birds of the Raptorial and Insessorial Orders, (systematically arranged,) observed in the Dakhan, by Lieut.-Colonel W. H. SYKES, Bombay Army, F.L.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S. M.R.A.S.

In the first volume of the Journal, page 161, we presented Col. SYKES's catalogue of the Mammalia of South India. This officer's fame as a naturalist has, we are happy to see, raised him to a Vice President's chair in the Zoological Society of London. In the proceedings of this active institution for April, 1832, (the arrival of which in India was by some accident delayed,) we perceive the following useful catalogue of the birds of the same country, which we hasten to transfer to our Journal. The list is prefaced by the following remarks:

Lieut.-Colonel SYKES, having brought before the Committee at previous meetings various Birds of the Raptorial and Insessorial Orders, collected by him during his residence in Dakhan, completed on the present evening the exhibition of his collection of those orders. He limited his observations on the several species to brief extracts from the copious notes which he had made in India respecting their habits, internal anatomy, and geographical distribution. In bringing them in succession under the notice of the Committee, he observed the order adopted in the following catalogue: ORDER 1. RAPTORES, Ill.

Fam. Vulturida, Vigors.-Genus Vultur, Auct. Vulture.

1. Vult. Indicus, Lath. Vautour Indou, Temm., Pl. Col. 26. Mahah Dhoh of the Mahrattas.

Irides deep brown. Length 42 inches, inclusive of tail of 10 inches. A stone half an inch in diameter was found in the stomach of one bird. The proportional length of the intestine to the body in these birds is 3 to 1, while in the Neophron Percnopterus it is 5.20 to 1. They congregate in flocks of twenty or thirty. On a dead camel, or horse, or bullock being thrown out on the plain, numbers of these Vultures are found assembled round it in an incredibly short time, although they may not have been seen in the neighbourhood for weeks before. Col. SYKES'S specimens are no doubt referrible to M. TEMMINCK's species, although the latter bird is described as having whitish irides.

2. Vult. Ponticerianus, Lath. Vautour Royal de Pondicherry, Sonn., p. 182. pl. 104. The irides are described by SHAW as red, while in two of Colonel SYKES's specimens they were of a deep brown, and in the third of a bright straw-yellow; but as the last had allowed itself to be captured by hand, had only grass and stalks of herbaceous plants in the stomach, and was evidently ill, the pale colour of the irides may be attributed to disease. Sexes alike in plumage. Mostly solitary. Colonel SYKES seldom, if ever, saw more than two together. The remarkable flatness of the crown, and very great width of the cranium, would seem to indicate a generic difference between this species and the Vult. fulvus and Bengalensis. Length of bird 36 inches, inclusive of tail of 11 inches.

3. Vult. Bengalensis, Gmel. Bengal Vulture, Lath. Geed of the Mahrattas. Of a smaller size, and with shorter and stouter legs than Vult. Indicus. Habits similar. Sexes alike. Length 30 inches, inclusive of tail of 10 inches. Colonel SYKES was induced to consider this species of Gmelin as distinct from Vult. cinereus, with which it has been classed by M. TIMMINCK, in his Manuel d'Ornithologie, p. 4.

Genus Neophron, Sav.

4. Neophron Percnopterus. Append. p. 163. Irides intense red brown. Gregarious. Sexes alike in adult birds; but non-adult birds vary in plumage from fuscous to mottled brown and white. These birds are always found in cantonments and camps. For the most part of the day they continue on the wing, soaring in circles. When on the ground, they walk with a peculiar gait, lifting their legs very high. They are efficient scavengers. Length 29 inches, inclusive of tail of 11 inches.

Vultur Percnopterus, Linn. Rachamah, Bruce, Trav.

Fam. Falconida, Leach.
Sub-Fam. Aquilina. Eagles.

Genus Haliaëtus, Sav. Sea Eagle.

5. Hal. Ponticerianus. Falco Ponticerianus, Lath. Aigle de Pondicherry, Buffon, p. 136, Pl. Enl. 416. Called Brahmany Kite by Europeans in India. Irides reddish brown. It is seen constantly passing up and down rivers at a considerable height, but prepared to fall at an instant on its prey. Usually it seizes while on the wing, but occasionally dips entirely under water, appearing to rise again with difficulty. It is quite a mistake to suppose it feeds on carrion. Colonel SYKES has examined the contents of the stomach and craw of many specimens, and always found fish, and fish only, excepting on one occasion, when a crab was