78 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



ing the encomiums passed upon it by friendly critics {Rev. de Zoologie, 

 1860, pp. 176-183, 313-325, 370-373).i 



Until about this time systematists, almost without exception, may be 

 said to have been wandering with no definite purpose. At leasttheirpurpose 

 was indefinite compared with that which they now hare before them. 

 No doubt they all agreed in saying that they were prosecuting a search 

 for what they called the True System of Nature ; but that was nearly 

 the end of their agreement, for in what that True System consisted the 

 opinions of scarcely any two would coincide, unless to own that it was 

 some shadowy idea beyond the present power of mortals to reach or even 

 comprehend. The Quinarians, who boldly asserted that they had fathomed 

 the mystery of Creation, had been shewn to be no wiser than other men, 

 if indeed they had not utterly befooled themselves ; for their theory at 

 best could give no other explanation of things than that they were 

 because they were. The conception of such a process as has now come to 

 be called by the name of Evolution was certainly not novel ; but except 

 to two men the way in which that process was or could be possible had 

 not been revealed.^ Here there is no need to enter into details of the 

 history of Evolutionary theories ; but the annalist in every branch of 

 Biology must record the eventful First of July 1858, when the now cele- 

 brated views of Darwin and Mr. Wallace were first laid before the scientific 

 world,^ and must also notice the appearance towards the end of the follow- 

 ing year of the former's Origin of Species, which has eS'ected one of the 

 greatest revolutions of thought in this or perhaps in any century. The 

 majority of biologists who had schooled themselves on other principles 

 were of course slow to embrace the new doctrine ; but their hesitation was 

 only the natural consequence of the caution which their scientific train- 

 ing enjoined. A few there were who felt as though scales had suddenly 

 dropped from their eyes, when greeted by the idea conveyed in the now 

 familiar phrase "Natural Selection"; but even those who had hitherto 

 believed, and still continued to believe, in the sanctity of " Species " at 

 once perceived that their life-long study had undergone a change, that 

 their old position was seriously threatened by a perilous siege, and that to 

 make it good they must find -new means of defence. Many bravely 

 maintained their posts, and for them not a word of blame ought to be 

 expressed. Some few pretended, though the contrary was notorious, that 

 they had always been on the side of the new philosophy, so far as they 

 allowed it to be philosophy at all, and for them hardly a word of blame is 

 too severe. Others after due deliberation, as became men who honestly 

 desired the truth and nothing but the truth, yielded wholly or almost 

 wholly to arguments which they gradually found to be irresistible. But, 



^ In this historical sketch of the progress of Ornithology it has not been thought 

 necessary to mention other oological works, since they have not a taxonomic bearing 

 and the chief of them are named elsewhere (p. 188, note), but to them must be added 

 Mr. Poyuting's Eggs of British Birds (at jiresent confined to the Limicolw), the figures 

 of which are excellent, and Capt. Bendire's work mentioned above (page 37). 



^ Neither Lamarck nor Robert Chambers (the now acknowledged author of Vestiges 

 of Creation), though thorough evolutionists, rationally indicated any means whereby, 

 to use the old phrase, " the transmutation of species " could be effected. 



^ Journal of the Proceedings of tlie Linnean Society, iii. Zoology, pp. 45-62. 



