SYSTEMATICALLY ARRANGED. 205 



been already given in The Analyst, it only remains to supply the 

 fifth ; and then the purchasers of this periodical will be in posses- 

 sion of the completest and most correct (though far from being so 

 correct as it should be) catalogue of the British vertebrata yet pub- 

 lished. The catalogue of beasts and birds was drawn up by. the wiit- 

 ter of this article, but that of the reptiles and amfibians by another 

 hand. The author of the last mentioned paper (v. iv., p. J 04) has, for 

 some unexplained reason, not adhered to the rule by which I was 

 guided in the nomenclature of the birds (see vol. iii., page 200), 

 and which elicited his commendations, but has suffered his list to 

 be deformedby some of those inconsistencies so rife among the 

 Naturalists of the old school. 



The writer observes — " It is not my intention to attempt, in 

 imitation of my very able and enterprizing predecessor, any sweep- 

 ing plans of reform in the arrangement and nomenclature of the 

 animals which constitute the subjects of my list." But where are 

 these very " sweeping reforms" there mentioned ? If it be true, as 

 Mr. Swainson says, that " the principles of a good plan will be seen 

 to greater advantage the more they are followed in detail," why 

 should our author object to the detail if he applauds the plan 9 

 And, moreover, not above four or five alterations were required in 

 the two classes given at page 105, which it would have been quite 

 as easy, and much more advantageous, to have made than to have 

 omitted. 



Our author says, at page 105 — " The writer to whom I have 

 just adverted has, both in his catalogue of British birds and mam- 

 malia (beasts), advanced many steps which he will find it, after all, 

 necessary to retrace, and neglected almost as many others which 

 might have been taken with equal safety and advantage." How 

 easy and convenient to make an off-hand assertion ! how hard, how 

 troublesome, to be called on to prove it ! Yet a reasoning being is 

 no more to be satisfied with the former in place of the latter, than a 

 hungry person would be content with a stone for bread or chaff for 

 wheat. What are the steps too many thus condemned, may be 

 gathered from some of the interesting reviews of the Birds of Eu- 

 rope by the same writer. For instance, in vol. iv., page 275, he 

 speaks unfavourably of Cuvier's division, Budites (or PeculaJ from 

 Molacilla, but at the same time he has spared us the necessity of 

 defending this procedure by saying that " the peculiarity of struc- 

 ture (of the Budites J, although Jurnishing a good sub-generic, is 

 not of sufficient weight to constitute alone a generic, character." 

 And pray what are the minimum divisions in the list spoken of 



