AND ON THE RELATIONS OF ANIMALS. O 



animal is regarded, upon ordinary occasions, more than the 

 ititier. And why should it not?'^Is not the one, in all ver- 

 tebrated animals, an index to the other ? Cannot we decide as 

 accurately, — nay, and with infinitely greater accuracy, — on the 

 station of an animal, (its essential structure, its economy, and 

 its habits,) from its outward form, as the anatomist can do 

 from "the fragment of a bone?" We should be pursuing a 

 day-dream, indeed, if this had not, and could not, be done 

 among us, " by the hand of a master, with perfect ease ;" yes, 

 and with a precision, moreover, of which the writer seems not to 

 have the most distant conception. Waving this, however, I beg 

 to inquire from him, whether outward structure is not as much 

 a branch of comparative anatomy as any other ? The study of 

 anatomy, in short, is the study of structure, and he who 

 despises one part of the study despises it ^?^ toto. Where 

 knowledge is to be gained by two methods, the one simple, 

 the other difficult, I should always give the preference to that 

 which most facilitates its acquisition. What, in short, are the 

 bill, the wings, the tail, and the feet of birds, but so many parts 

 of their comparative (although external) anatomy ? And what 

 other parts so powerfully and strikingly determine and modify 

 the external form? Now these are precisely the characters 

 which both M. Cuvier and myself have chosen as the founda- 

 tion of our respective ornithological systems ; but with this 

 difference, that I have endeavoured to substantiate, by 

 analysis, the system of this variation,^ while not the least 

 attempt has been made to effect any such generalization in 

 the Regne Animal. I mention this, not as depreciating that 

 celebrated work, but as one of the many proofs that its illus- 

 trious author had neither time nor inclination to study affinities, 

 with the object of discovering the natural series. It is no 

 disparagement to the highest naturalist, that he is obliged, 

 from the boundless extent of our science, to limit his chief 

 attention to some of its parts, and comparatively to neglect 

 others. I have more than once repeated my surprise, that 

 M. Cuvier, occupied with his innumerable inquiries in com- 

 parative anatomy, (in itself the study of a life,) should have 

 accomplished so much in Zoology. Nothing can detract from 

 his splendid talents in the former department ; but I must 

 confess my belief, in the language of one who well knew his 



'■ Northern Zoology, Vol. IL The Birds. 



