that connect the Orders and Families of Birds. 513 
on this subject, and many copious draughts have been taken 
from these valuable sources. But, while I have given due 
credit to every inference which my predecessors have been en- 
abled to deduce from their own observations, and every aflinity 
which their own judgement and experience have enabled them 
to point out, I have carefully abstained from adopting implicitly 
the systematic notions of any individual, or restricting myself 
to any particular line or mode of arrangement. Devoted to no 
school of natural science, and carried away by the dictates of 
no authority however high, no reputation however imposing, 
I have come to the investigation of my subject, —and I trust I 
may here be allowed to know myself, —unseduced by the fasci- 
nations of theory, and unfettered by the trammels of system. 
Whatever has appeared to me most conspicuous by its own 
merits, and most conformable to the truth of nature, I have 
unhesitatingly extracted from every source, in whatever school 
or country it may have been promulgated, or by whatever 
systematic views or scientific arguments it may have been sup- 
ported. Considerable has been the aid for which I am thus 
indebted to the labours of my predecessors. Besides the valu- 
able information which I have gleaned from the works of the 
earlier systematic ornithologists, our own Ray in particular and 
M. Brisson, much obligation is due on my part * to the clear, 
cautious, and discerning acumen of M. Illiger ;—much to the 
commanding views and generalising mind of M. Cuvier ;— 
much to that scientific sagacity and those enlarged and pene- 
trating powers of investigation, which have placed M.Vieillot in 
the highest rank of philosophical inquirers into nature ;—and 
* ] speak here only of professed systematic ornithologists. Were I to enumerate 
my obligations to all whose public writings or whose personal friendship have partially 
contributed to my information, [ should be involved in an endless return of gratitude 
and acknowledgement. 
much 
