Natural History in London, 8 1 



arrangement, the design of which was so to assemble them, as to aid the 

 memory in the retention of their distinctive characters : but in a natural 

 system, or an attempt to describe the mutual relations between natural 

 objects as they actually appear to exist in nature, the aggregate of the 

 characters, and their variation, are taken as the foundations of the arrange- 

 ment. Mr. Bra3'ley then proceeded to a brief view of the history of the 

 quinary distribution of animals, and of the circular succession of affinities 

 among them. They were discovered, he stated, by Mr. W.S. Macleay, an 

 eminent entomologist, at present his Majesty's Commissioner of Arbitration 

 at the Havannah, who published, in the year IS 19, a work entitled Hdr(B 

 EntomologiccB /\n\vh\ch. he sketched out a view of what appeared to him to 

 be the natural arrangement of the animal kingdom in general, and that of 

 the sub-kingdom, Annulosa, in particular. A few years subsequently, a 

 j)aper by Mr. Vigors, now secretary of the Zoological Society, was pub- 

 lished in the 14th volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society, in 

 which a similar natural arrangement was demonstrated to pervade the 

 feathered creation. This arrangement Mr. Brayley proceeded to explain, 

 by means of some large diagrams, and of paintings and specimens of the 

 various groups of birds. The first ramification of the class of birds is into 

 five orders : Raptores, or birds of prey ; Insessores, or perching birds ; 

 Rasores, or gallinaceous birds ; Grallatores, or wading birds ; and Natatores, 

 or web-footed birds. Four of these answer respectively to the Linnean 

 orders, viccipitres, Gallinas, Grallae, andi4'nseres;the Insessores consisting of 

 the Picae and Passeres united, as the most eminent naturalists have shown 

 they really are, in nature. Intermediate groups of birds connect these 

 orders into a complete series returning into itself, or a complete circular 

 succession ; and each order consists of five minor groups, also forming a 

 circular series, connected together in a corresponding manner, by interme- 

 diate or osculant groups. After explaining the characters of the principal 

 groups, Mr. Brayley stated, that all the information he had oflered respect- 

 ing the natural arrangement of birds, had been derived from Mr. Vigors*s 

 publications ; and he concluded with a warm tribute to the zeal and disin- 

 terestedness displayed by that gentleman in the promotion of zoological 

 science, and especially in the concerns of the Zoological Society. 



Mr. Sweefs Aviary , Cameron Square, Chelsea. — Mr. Sweet, having turned 

 his attention to taming and keeping the musical genus Sylvia, has, by dili- 

 gent observation and appropriate management, actually changed most 

 species of this family from annual to perennial songsters. I visited his 

 collection in March last, and saw, with surprise, his interesting choristers, 

 and heard from them the familiar strains of midsummer. A little room 

 with a fire-place serves as an aviary j in this there are two large cages, 

 which contain the nightingale, white-throat, lesser white-throat, pettichaps, 

 wheat-ear, whin-chat, stone- chat, redstart, black-cap, willow- wren, and 

 some other birds. 



All these beautiful emigrants live healthily and happily together, partake 

 of nearly the same kind of food, sing in season and out of season, and, in 

 this artificial captivity, even gain new powers of song, and new social pro- 

 pensities. Some time back, an old whin- chat adopted for his own, fed, and 

 nursed up a nest of young redstarts ; and Mr. Sweet is of opinion, that 

 any or all of them may be so treated as to breed in such aviaries. Their 

 whole history, treatment, &c., is particularly interesting, and is fully detailed 

 in Mr. Sweet's work. The British Warhlei^Sy with coloured plates, recently 

 published. 



I know not a more interesting amusement than an aviary of such song- 

 sters. Their appearance, in a suitably large and warm apartment, gives no 

 idea of cruel imprisonment. Paired, as they may be, and ranging among 

 living plants, as myrtle and orange trees, in or under which they will build 

 and breed, they present no scene of pitiable iofringement of liberty, nor of 

 Vol. L — No. 1. g 



