Mr. Catlin visited nearly fifty different tribes of Indians, and resided familiarly among them for several years. He made their habits and character his exclusive study. With the eye of a poet, the judgment of a man of rare sagacity, and the hand of an accomplished artist, he saw and scrutinized, and sketched the forms, the feats, the entire style of life of the varied nations with whom he had made his home. The general features of this strange and most interesting people are presented to us in this collection with a copiousness and variety which could only be attained by one who had devoted the enthusiasm of years to a task, to which he had, in the first instance, brought extraordinary talents. Whatever met his watchful glance that was striking or peculiar in the religious ceremonies, the warlike demonstrations, the festive celebrations of peace and leisure, the separate acts and social habits of the wanderers of the distant wilds of the west, was instantly transferred to his canvas, and fixed in living colours on the very spot where the scene was shown. Accordingly we have here illustrations of the mode in which almost every thing, which is common or curious, usual or occasional, among the tribes is performed. The chace, which there has no meaner object than the "stately buffalo," is before us in full and numerous portraiture; the rousing of the herd in the centre of some endless prairie, the reckless vehemence of the pursuit by the wild horse and the wilder hunter, the mad dashing of the fearless sportsman into the midst of the monstrous throng, with nothing but bow and knife; the unhorsing of some, who roll trampled under foot, and of others who are tossed high into the air; the final capture and death of the huge victim of the sport, all these are presented to us in the freshness and freedom of the very scenes themselves of this magnificent excitement. Then there are dances of an art and an intricacy that might instruct Almack's itself; the bear dance, in which, clothed in skins, they imitate the postures and movements of that animal; the buffalo dance, in which they are masked in the skulls which they have taken in the hunt; the eagle dance, which mimics the attitude of that bird; the dance on the snow in peculiar shoes; and the numerous dances of war. Then we have bold and admirable sketches of the scenery of the prairies and the hills 2000 miles above St. Louis, presenting a richness and brilliance of verdure of which the Atlantic resident has never formed a conception. In short, it would be difficult to point out a single particular in which the sketches of this ardent and able painter do not furnish the fullest and most valuable information about the western continent and its inhabitants. There are portraits, likewise, of all the remarkable persons whom the artist encountered in his rambles, painted on the spot, in their actual dresses and natural positions, certified as rigidly accurate, in every