94 Mr. Vigors's Re'ply to some Observations 



which a few of the soi-disant initiated will be exclusively 

 authorised to issue their edicts, as if from an oracle. Like every 

 other subject of research, it is open to the inquiries of every man 

 whose industry or whose opportunities afford a promise of pro- 

 secuting it to advantage ; and like every other science it is to be 

 pursued according to the usual modes and the admitted principles 

 of reasoning. The views and the labours of the naturalist are, in 

 fact, to be praised or condemned, not by the voice of authority, 

 but by their own intrinsick merits or defects. Among the sub- 

 jects which this freedom of investigation has brought before the 

 publick, is the right demanded by every inquirer into nature of 

 characterizing and naming such groups as may appear to him 

 worthy of such distinction : and as far as may be judged from the 

 general practice of the higher naturalists of the present day, this 

 question appears to be decided in the affirmative. The principle 

 of distinguishing new genera seems not only admitted, but, with 

 one or two exceptions, universally acted upon : and the only 

 question on the subject which admits of being canvassed regards 

 the extent or the abuse of the privilege. 



It is not therefore by the mere force of his own word or opinion 

 that the critick in the " Dictionnaire'^ can now expect to reverse 

 this decree, and proscribe the institution of new divisions in any 

 group, much less in so extensive a genus as that of the Linnean 

 Psittacus, The expression of such an opinion must be considered 

 of no further influence than as it affects the writer's own practice. 

 There is not an argument advanced by him in the work in question 

 to support his opinion ; his remarks are restricted to mere assertion ; 

 and there is nothing new among them which calls for an observa- 

 tion in addition to what has been so often urged on this subject, 

 except perhaps the expression, in which so much meaning appears 

 to be implied, that " Psittacus is a natural genus." 



Are we to infer from this expression that because a genus is 

 natural, it must not be subdivided ? If so, I know scarcely a group 

 in the modern arrangements of Zoology which admits of a sub- 

 division. Every group is inferred to be natural, that is, to have its 

 prototype in nature, as far as man can understand the original, or 

 it ought not to be adopted. How few for instance of the Linnean 



