APPENDIX. 



(Printed at the expense of the respective Writers,) 



Controversy between W. Swainsony Esq. F.R.S. L.S. ^c, and 

 N. A, Vigors, Esq, AM. F.R.S. 8fc. 



My dear Sir, 

 I HASTEN to redeem my pledge of replying to Mr. Swainson's letter of 

 the 1st of October. My observations on that letter will necessarily be 

 lengthy, and from the nature of the subject they cannot but be tedious, 

 I offer no apology, however, on this head. The arrangement I have 

 made with you, by which any controversial writings of mine, even although 

 I am forced into the contest, become a gratuitous addition to your Maga- 

 zine, insures the good effect of their not debarring your readers from more 

 scientific matter, and equally that of not iixiposing a task upon their 

 purses. The reading of them, it is true, may impose a tax upon their 

 time : but that time is at their own disposal, and if they choose to throw 

 it away on any lucubrations of mine, it is their own fault that they make 

 the sacrifice. 



Would that the saa'ifice on my part had been equally optional ! Would 

 that 1 could have avoided this war of words, so uncongenial to my feelings 

 so foreign to my habits, — this deplorable waste of time, on a subject as 

 paltry as it is unprofitable I But the duty I owe those valuable friends 

 who have volunteered their kindness on this and many other occasions ; 

 the duty I owe to the public, which has confidentially assigned to me 

 places of no slight trust and importance ; have imperatively demanded, and 

 still demand, that I should absolve him, whom they have so honoured 

 with their friendship and confidence, from the foul calumny which this 

 writer has dared to propagate. 



The mode in which 1 can bring the attacks of so evasive an adversary 

 as Mr. Swainson before the reader is not easily selected. No compre- 

 hensive or systematic view can be taken of the observations of a writer so 

 desultory, so regardless of the point at issue, so inconsistent with himself, 

 and, at times, so contradictory even of his own statements and arguments, 



" Quo teneam vultus mutantem Proteo nodo ? " 



The only feasible mode, I apprehend, of giving any adequate represent- 

 ation of the contents of this writer's last letter, is that of following his 

 own incoherent order, laying hold of his observations one by one as they 

 occur, and pursuing the rambling series from the outset to the end. A 

 humorous story is related by our friends, Dr. Buckland and Mr, Broderip 

 {Zool. Jour., vol. ii. p. 19.), of a hedgehog despatching a snake by passing 

 its body through its jaws from head to tail, and regularly cranching each 

 of its vertebrae in succession. In imitation of this honest quadruped, who 

 thus methodically puts his slippery antagonist hors de combat, I shall 

 separately lay hold of each prominent portion of this wily gentleman's 

 epistle, and extract and expose, for the reader's observation, the true sub- 

 stance of which it is composed. 



Vol. V. — No. 24, [n] 



