A picture dated 1649, now in Buckingham Palace, of two cows and a young bull in a pasture, combines with his customary fidelity to nature a more than common power of effect, and breadth and freedom of treatment. To the same year belongs also The _Farmyard_, formerly in the Cassel Gallery, now in that of S. Petersburg, which, according to Smith, fully deserves its celebrity both for the clearness and warmth of the sunset effect, as well as for its masterly execution. To 1650 belongs the picture of _Orpheus_, charming the animal world by the strains of his lyre, in the Amsterdam Museum. Here we see that the master had also studied wild animals. He is most successful in the bear. In the same gallery is another _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the same year--a hilly landscape with a shepherdess singing to her child, a shepherd playing on the bagpipe, and oxen, sheep, and goats around. The names of Weenix and Hondecoeter are so inseparably associated in the popular mind as painters of birds, whose respective works are not readily distinguishable moreover by the casual observer, that a short excursion into their family histories is advisable, for the purpose of showing how it was that this particular branch of the art was so successfully practised by the two. Moreover, as there were three Hondecoeters and two Weenixes who were painters, it is necessary to say something about each of them. MELCHIOR HONDECOETER, the best known, was of an ancient and noble family. He was instructed till the age of seventeen by his father Gysbert, who was a tolerable painter. Giles Hondecoeter, his grandfather, painted live birds admirably, but chiefly cocks and hens in the taste of Savery and Vincaboom. Melchior was born in 1636, and studied for a time with his father; but meantime his aunt Josina had married Jan Baptist Weenix, and a son was born to them, Jan Weenix, who inherited from old Giles Hondecoeter, his grandfather, his talent for painting poultry, and from his father, Jan Baptist Weenix, he acquired the benefit of several influences which were not shared by his cousin Melchior. JAN BAPTIST WEENIX, who was nicknamed "Rattle," was born at Amsterdam about 1621. His father was an architect, who bred his son up to that profession, but he was afterwards put to study painting under Abraham Bloemart. Soon after his marriage with Josina he was seized with the desire to visit Italy, and he set off alone to Rome, promising to return in four months. In Rome, however, he was so well received that he stayed there four years, and Italianized himself to an extent that may be seen in a picture in the Wallace Collection, a _Coast Scene with Classic Ruins_, which he signs _Gio. Batta. Weenix_. Though he returned to Holland and settled near Utrecht, his manner was sensibly modified by his sojourn in Rome.