ON THE BRITISH BIRDS OF PREY. 19 



of this kind are neither comprehensive nor distinctive ; 

 they resemble those employed by some botanists, who 

 it seems have discovered a natm-al method, and who 

 give, as " essential characters," such marks as these : — 

 Trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants ; leaves mostly 

 compound, pinnate or ternate, or simple ; flowers in 

 spikes, racemes or panicles, sometimes solitary. 



It is, in fact, impossible to frame a perfect character 

 for any group of birds, seeing the species of every 

 large genus exhibit modifications connecting them with 

 the species of many other genera ; and Nature, so far as 

 I can guess her views, will not consent to allow her 

 productions to be confined within triangles, squares, 

 pentagons, or circles, nor even to be drawn out into 

 straight lines, single or parallel. Her disposition of 

 these objects seems to me to be divergent, inosculant, 

 and intricate in such a degree, that no human intellect 

 can possibly comprehend it. Some arrangement, how- 

 ever, is necessary, for, without it, the student could not 

 form any definite conception of the beings described ; 

 and, in my opinion, it is of not much importance what 

 method one adopts, provided it afford a tolerably cor- 

 rect idea of the aflfinities of the species. But before ' 

 we should be able to group the objects in a somewhat 

 natural manner, or in one that might exhibit a consi- 

 derable number of their relations, we should have to 

 make ourselves acquainted with the organization of 

 those objects. Now, so little has been done in this re- 



