52 John Hogg, Esq., on the Classification of Birds. 



selection of the genera, and have been obliged, in order to do 

 away with the inconvenience of subgenera^ to increase the 

 number of the genera themselves ; although I trust this has 

 only been done where real and sufficient differences have 

 confirmed such a necessity. But I must observe that a great 

 many of the new genera, constituted by Messrs C. L. Bona- 

 parte and G. B. Gray, appear to be unnecessary, and depend- 

 ing on far too minute distinctions. The former author, in 

 his " Geographical and Comparative List of the Birds of 

 Europe and North America," Edit. 1838, makes the genera 

 then found in Europe to amount to the vast number of 246 ; 

 but, in his later Memoir, " Catalogo Metodico degli Uccelli 

 Europei," published in the " Nuovi Annali delle Scienze Na- 

 turali di Bologna, Anno 1842," he has injudiciously increased 

 this number to 265. Mr Gould, in his splendid work on the 

 " Birds of Europe,*' gives only 168 genera ; whilst M. Tern- 

 minck in his second edition, with the supplementary parts, of 

 '• Manuel d'Ornithologie,*" comprises all the European spe- 

 cies in 97 genera ; and 113 are the total number of genera 

 mentioned in M, H. SchlegeVs " Revue Critique des Oiseaux 

 d'Europe." Leide, 1844. 



Now, the entire number of genera, as selected by myself, 

 for the birds of Europe, will be seen to be 205. Again, the 

 Prince of Canino, in addition to his immense number of ge- 

 nera, has included in his very recent " Methodical Cata- 

 logue," many subgenera ; to the latter, in truth, I cannot 

 help expressing an insuperable objection, because by a fre- 

 quent introduction of subgenera, a universal departure from 

 the vast utility experienced in the Binomial method would 

 soon take place, and which, in time, would most assuredly be 

 followed by the intrusion of subspecies (as has already been 

 effected by M. Brehrn), and even of subvarieties. 



In the classification of birds, the maxim — " Exceptio pro- 

 bat regulam'' certainly prevails to a great extent ; for there 

 is scarcely a division, a tribe, or a family, in which some 

 bird does not occur that departs from the regular or normal 

 form of that division, and becomes in one or more of its cha- 

 racters an exception to, or assumes some irregularity, or wan- 

 dering from the rest, and so constitutes what is usually termed 



