400 Mr. N. A. Vigors on the Natural Affinities 



to observe, that any attempt to exhibit the natural distribution 

 of the groups of ornithology must necessarily, in the present 

 state of our knowledge, be in a great degree defective. Exten- 

 sive as have been our acquisitions of late years, our knowledge 

 of this department of animal life may still be said to be in its 

 infancy. Were T to assert that we have now attained a satis- 

 factory view of Nature, so far as to enable us to pourtray a com- 

 plete and finished arrangement of her works, the new forms that 

 are every day pouring in upon us, the very exhibition* at the last 

 meeting of the Society, collected in a hitherto unexplored region 

 by the zeal of one of its most valued members, and placed at 

 its disposal by his liberality, would sufficiently prove me in 

 error. But it is not alone in the knowledge of forms that we 

 are deficient, but in that of the habits, economy, and internal 

 anatomy of many species, nay, entire families, with whose forms 

 we are already conversant. Collectors of natural history are not 

 always men of science ; nor have scientific men, even when they 

 become collectors, at all times the leisure or the opportunity of 

 making those minute observations that may determine the natu- 

 ral affinities of the objects that come in their way. This is a 

 deficiency that most frequently baffles the systematic ornitholo- 

 gist, who for the most part has but the external covering of a 

 bird to assist him in ascertaining its place in nature. The bill 

 and legs may indeed decide the more extensive subdivision or 

 order under which it arranges itself ; but its affinity to any of 

 the subordinate groups can be pronounced with no certainty, 

 until its internal structure and general economy be ascertained. 

 Hence it arises that some chasms will occasionally occur in the 

 following attempt at a natural arrangement ; and many minute 



* The exhibition alluded to is the very valuable collection of birds formed by 

 General Hardwicke in Nepaul, and most liberally presented by him to the Linnean 

 Society. 



groups 



