WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. This book is a grievous failure--that is, if the merits of books are to be adjudged with their titles. The writer is the author of _Stories of Waterloo_, from whom better things might have been expected. He has taken for his model, Mr. Lloyd's really excellent _Field Sports of the North of Europe_; but he has woefully missed his mark. The title of the work before us is equivocal: a reader might as reasonably expect the Sports of the Western World, as adventures in Ireland, such as make up the present volumes. What we principally complain of is the paucity of Sports among their contents. It is true that the title also promises Legendary Tales and Local Sketches, but here they are the substance, and the Wild Sports mere shadow. We have too little of "the goodly rivers," "all sorts of fish," "the sweet islands and goodly lakes, like little inland seas," "of the most beautiful and sweet countrey," as Spenser phrases it in the author's title-page; and there is not so much as the author promises in his preface, of shooting the wild moors and fishing the waters, of days spent by "fell and flood," and light and joyous nights in mountain bivouacs and moorland huts. There is too much hearsay, and storytelling not to the purpose, and trifling gossip of "exquisite potatoes" and "rascally sherry"--details which would disgrace a half-crown guide book, and ought certainly not to be set forth with spaced large type in hotpressed octavos at a costly rate. Nevertheless, the work may suit club-room tables and circulating libraries, though it will not be allowed place for vivid display of Wild Sports. We quote two extracts--one, a narrative which the author knows to be substantially true; the other, relating to the attack of eagles, (though we omit the oft-told tale of the peasant attempting to rob an eagle's nest, and his hair turning white with fright):-- _The Blind Seal._ About forty years ago a young seal was taken in Clew Bay, and domesticated in the kitchen of a gentleman whose house was situated on the sea-shore. It grew apace, became familiar with the servants, and attached to the house and family; its habits were innocent and gentle, it played with the children, came at its master's call, and, as the old man described him to me, was "fond as a dog, and playful as a kitten." Daily the seal went out to fish, and after providing for his own wants, frequently brought in a salmon or turbot to his master. His delight in summer was to bask in the sun, and in winter to lie before the fire, or, if permitted, creep into the large oven, which at that time formed the regular appendage of an Irish kitchen.