riilNCIPLES AND FEACTICE OF CLASSIFICATION. 



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of them scarcely i^re-liistoric. One i>f the oldest of these is the gigantic JEpyornis 



of Miuhigascar, of which we have not only the bones, but the egg. The immense 



Dinoniithes of New Zealand, were among the litter of these to die, 



portions of skin, feathers, etc., of these great creatures having been 



found. With the Moa-remaius are found those of Harpagornis, a 



raptorial bird large enough to have preyed upon the Moas. Finally, 



various birds have been exterminated in historic timjes, and some of 



them within the life-time of persons now living. The Dodo of 



Mauritius, Didus ineptus, is the most celebrated one of these, of 



the living of which we have documentary evidence down to 1681 ; 



the Solitaire of Rodriguez, Fezophaps solitarius, the Geant, Leguatia 



gigantea, and several others of the same Mascarene group of islands, 



are in similar case. The Great Auk, Aka impennis, is supposed 



to have become extinct in 18i4 ; a species of Parrot, Nestor pro- 



ducttis, was last known to be living in 1851 ; various parrots and 



other birds have likewise disappeared within a very few years. 



At least one North American bird, the Labrador Duck, Camp- 



tolcemus labradorius, seems likely soon to follow. (A. Newton, 



Ency. Brit, 9th ed., art. Birds.) 



§ 2. — PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF CLASSIFICATION. 



Having seen what a Bird is, and how it is distinguished 

 from other animals, our next business is to inquire how birds are fjq 17. —Restoration of 



related to and distinguished from one another, as the basis of Legitatia gigantea. From 



Packard, after SchlegeL 



Classification : a prime object of ornithology, without the attainment of which birds, 

 however pleasing they are to the senses, do not satisfy the mind, which always strives to make 

 ■orderly disposition of its knowledge, and so discover the reciprocal relations and interdepen- 

 dencies of the things it knows. Classification presupposes that there do exist such relations, 

 .according to which we may arrange objects in the manner which facilitates their comprehen- 

 sion, by bringing together what is like, and separating what is unlike ; and that such relations 

 are the results of fixed, inevitable law. It is, therefore, 



Taxonomy (Gr. rd^is, taxis, arrangement, and vojxos, nomos, law), or the rational, 

 Imcful disposition of observed facts. Just as taxidermy is the art of fixing a bird's skin in a 

 natural manner, so taxonomy is the science of arranging birds in the most natural manner; 

 in the way that brings out most clearly their natural affinities, and *so shows them in their 

 proper relations to each other. This is the greatest possible help to the memory in its 

 attempt to retain its hold upon great numbers of facts. But taxonomy, which involves 

 consideration of the greatest problems of ornithology, as of e\"ery other branch of liiology 

 (biology being the science of life and living things in general), is beset with the gravest difficul- 

 ties, springing from our defective knowledge. We could only perfect our taxonomy by 

 having before us a specimen of every kind of bird that exists, or ever existed; and by 

 thoroughly understanding how each is related to and differs from every other one. This is 

 obviously impossible ; in point of fact, we do not know all the birds now living, and only a 

 small number of extinct birds have come to light ; so that many of the most important links 

 in the chain of evidence are missing, and many more cannot be satisfactorily joined together. 

 With these springs of ignorance and sources of error must be reckoned also the ri.sk of goiiicf 



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