INTRODUCTION. vii 



the preparation of the materials has been a great source of satis- 

 faction to those more immediately afflicted by the sudden dis- 

 pensation of Providence. The responsibility of editing materials 

 far too valuable to be laid aside and forgotten, is also cheerfully 

 undertaken as a duty to a very dear friend and companion ; and 

 although every care has been taken to work out the author's 

 views, as far as the recollection of frequent conversations on the 

 subject and memoranda and notes interspersed throughout the 

 manuscript suggested, it may be we have not entirely succeeded 

 in bringing out his intentions. This must be our blame only. 

 We have no doubt he would have used the words of Linnaeus, 

 and requested, " Quo plures errores apud nos detergere potes, 

 eo gratior eris ; tum possemus omnia corrigere vivi;" but the 

 conclusion of the sentence must be borne in mind, " post Fata 

 non licet emendare propria opuscula." 



In preparing these Synonyms for the press, it has been our 

 object, as already stated, to follow out as far as possible the 

 plans of their author, and which has been more easily done from 

 memoranda having been written down at various times as they 

 occurred, intended evidently to serve as guides for himself in 

 the future printing of the work. The genera have, therefore, 

 been placed as they followed each other in the manuscript, 

 and as his ornithological collection was arranged ; and although 

 they may not stand as he might have ultimately arranged them, 

 we have thought it better to place them so than to make par- 

 tial changes only. His views of an arrangement were averse 

 to anything resembling a line, square, or circle : he conceived 

 that it could only be mapped out by following the affinities to 

 the ends of the branches or tributaries, as it were, which would 

 form a very irregular distribution of the whole. He remarks in 

 his memoranda, " The best way of constructing a really natural 

 system of Birds seems to be, 1st, to discard all idea of symmetry 

 either circular or linear ; 2nd, To take one genus at a time (at 

 random), and to place it between those two others whose affinity 

 to it is the most palpable. If this were done throughout, an 

 irregular branching tree would be constructed, and those genera 

 which have only one affinity would form the ends of the branches, 

 those with two affinities would come in the middle of the 

 branches, and those with more than two would form the base of 



