UNIFORMITY IN NATURAL GROUPS. 245 
assort objects into natural assemblages, than one 
whose ideas are shackled by the dogmas of nomen- 
clators, and the prejudices of systematists. Nature, 
in the midst of her astonishing, endless diversity of 
forms, still seems to delight in preserving a marked 
degree of uniformity and consistency in her own 
groups; not only in regard to their habits and general 
structure, but in such things as are most likely to 
strike common observers — such as size, colour, and 
geographic distribution. She rarely, if ever, places 
in the same genus, animals of any striking dispro- 
portion in their dimensions. We have, for instance, 
no eagles of the size of thrushes; nor any finches, 
out of some hundreds, that are larger than sparrows. 
- The typical gallinaceous birds, as the peacock, 
pheasant, Turkey fowl, &c., are all large; and have 
so many points of general resemblance, that the 
ordinary observer, caring nothing for systems, sees 
at once that they all belong to a natural group. It 
matters not, in the first instance, whether we call 
such a group a genus or a family, because the rank 
it holds in the scale of creation is a subject for 
ulterior research: when, in reality, this rank is to 
be determined and demonstrated by an extensive 
analysis of all the other groups, large and small, 
in ornithology. Looking to the gallinaceous birds 
above named, we immediately perceive that, al- 
though they belong to the same family, they are 
of different genera: a peacock is as much unlike a 
pheasant, as a turkey differs from a fowl. We 
therefore proceed to define all these differences, 
making their distinctions from such characters as 
are most striking and most intelligible. The pea- 
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