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XXII. Observations on the Natural Affinities that connect the 

 ^ Orders and Families of Birds. By Nicholas Aylward Vigors, Esq. 



M.A. F.L.S. Communicated by the Zoological Club of the 



Linnean Society. 



^ Read December 3, 1823. 



On looking back to the progress of zoology since it first began 

 to be cultivated, it may be observed, that the steps by which it 

 has advanced to its present comparative state of excellence have 

 been more rapid within the last few years than during the entire 

 period of its antecedent existence as a science. The vast acces- 

 sions which have been made to our knowledge of animal life 

 within the present century by the zeal and industry of scientific 

 travellers ; the copious fields of investigation which have been 

 opened to the naturalist by the extended relations of European 

 commerce and colonization ; the assistance which has been afford- 

 ed by the sister science of geology, in adding the remains of a 

 former world to enrich the stores and supply the deficiencies of 

 the present, have increased the materials of zoology to an extent 

 which the most sanguine views of its earlier cultivators could 

 scarcely have anticipated. But it is not so much in the addi- 

 tional dignity which has been conferred on the science by this 

 copious accumulation of facts and materials, that its improve- 

 ment consists, as in the mode of investigation to which it gave 

 rise, and the comprehensive views which it necessarily imparted. 

 In the infancy of the science, the knowledge of individual spe- 

 voL. XIV. 3 F cies. 



