43 



THE FEATHERED TRIBES. 



In the engraving (fig. 28) the parallelism is more remarkable ; it contains two series, 

 formed from two very closely allied families. The swallows and the goatsuckers 

 are distinguished from other birds of the same family by their large and deeply-cleft 

 beaks. These are distinguished from one another in this, that the swallows have close 

 plumage and are bii-ds of day, while the goatsuckers have soft pliunage and are night 

 birds. A resemblance may also be traced in the claws of the birds thus compared. 



Most justly was it long since remarked b)' Locke : " All the great business of genera 

 and species amounts to no more than this, that men make abstract ideas, and, setting 

 them in their minds with names annexed to them, do thereby enable themselves to 

 consider things and to discourse of them, as it were in bundles, for the easier and readier 

 improvement and commmiicafion of tlieir knowledge, which woidd advance but slowly 

 were their words and thoughts confined only to j)articulars." Again, he says : " The 

 reason why I tiike so jjarticidar notice of this is, that we may not be mistaken about 

 genera and species, and their essences, as if they were things regularly and constantly 

 made by nature, and had a real exist&ice in things, when they appear, upon a more 

 wary survey, to be nothing else but an artifice of the imderstanding, for the easier 

 signifjong such collections of ideas as it should often have occasion to communicate by 

 one general turn imder which diverse particulars, as far forth as they agreed to that 

 abstract idea, might be comprehended." 



Nor less worthy of attention are the observations of Mr. Vigors on the same subject. 

 " Though nature nowhere exhibits an absolute division between her various groups, she 

 yet displays sufficiently distinctive characters to enable us to arrange them into conter- 

 minous assemblages, and to retain each assemblage, at least in idea, separate from the 

 rest. It is not, however, at the j)oint of junction between it and its adjoining grovijjs, 

 that I look for the distiuctive character. There, as M. Temminck justly observes, it is 

 not to be found. It is at that central point which is most remote from the ideal point 

 of junction on each side, and where the characteristic peculiarities of the groups, gi'adually 

 unfolding themselves, appear in their full development ; it is at tliat spot, in short, where 

 the typical character is most conspicuous, that I fix my exclusive attention. Upon these 

 typical eminences I plant those banners of distinction round which corresponding 

 species mty congregate, as they more or less ajjproach the types of each. 



" In my pursuit of natm'e, I am accustomed to look upon the great series in which her 

 productions insensibly pass into each other, with similar ieelings to those with which I 

 contemplate some of those beautiful pieces of natural scenery where the grounds swell 

 out in a diversified interchange of valley and elevation. Here, although I can detect no 

 breach in that undulating outline over which the eye delights to glide without intoi'- 

 ruption, I can still give a separate existence in idea to every elevation before me, and 

 assign it a separate name. It is upon the points of eminence in each that I fix my 

 attention, and it is these points I compare together, regardless in my divisions of the 

 lower grounds whicli imperceptibly meet at the base. There, also, it is that I fix on the 

 typical eminences that rise most conspicuously above that continued outline in whicli 

 nature disposes her living groups. These afford me .sufficient prominency ftf character 

 for my ideal divisions ; for ideal they must be where nature shows none. And tliere it is 

 that I can conceive my groups to be at once separate and united ; separate at their 

 typical elevations, but united at tlicir basal extremes." 



Mr. Vigors then justly urges the analogy whicli may be derived from the course of the 

 seasons, so difl'erent in their cliaracter and influence, and yet so difficult precisely to 

 define and to separate. Of the ])henonicna of the several jtortionS of tlic year, arisin» 

 from the earth's annual re\olution round the sun, every one is conscious, but "can any 

 man," he asks, "point out the actual limits of these ii;iiural (leiiailnKnts? Can he fix, 

 for instance, in that intervening interchange of season, when tlie rigour of winter 



