ON THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT STATE OP ORNITHOLOGY. 175 



the Linnaean Society (Transactions, vol. xviii.). The diagnostic characters 

 of all the families and subfamilies are here worked out with elaborate exact- 

 ness, as they are also in his ' Systema Oruithologiee,' published in the ' An- 

 nali delle Scienze Naturali di Bologna,' vols. iii. and viii. In these latter 

 esays the author introduces several modifications, the most important of 

 which is, that he removes the PsittacidcB from the other Scansores, and places 

 them as a separate order at the commencement of the system, before the 

 Accipitres. This arrangement, which was first proposed by Blainville, is 

 grounded on the curvature of the beak, the presence of a cere, and the reti- 

 culation of the tarsi, which are supposed to connect the Psittacidce and Acci- 

 pitres. I must be allowed however to differ from this opinion, as the Parrots 

 appear to me to be much more closely allied to the other Scansores, with 

 which they are usually classed. In the nature of their food, the prevailing 

 red and green colours of the plumage, the structure of the tongue in some 

 genera ( Trichoglossus), and of the beak in others (^Nestor, &c.), they seem 

 really allied (though somewhat remotely) to the Rhamphastidce, and through 

 them to the Bucconidce and Picidm. 



An arrangement of the chief families and genera of birds, with definitions 

 of their distinctive characters, will be found in the ' Elemens de Zoologie,' by 

 M. Milne Edwards, 1834 (2nd ed. 1837), and in similar introductory works 

 by Oken and Goldfuss. 



Professor Sundevall published a new classification of birds in the ' Kongl. 

 Vetensk. Acad. Handlingar,' Stockholm, 1836. He divides them into two 

 large groups, nearly corresponding with the Insessores and Grallatores of the 

 Prince of Canino. He agrees with Mr. Swainson in attaching a real import- 

 ance to the analogical representation of groups, but appears not to insist on 

 their numerical uniformity. 



Mr. Swainson had, in 1831, given a sketch of his ornithological system in 

 Dr. Richardson's ' Fauna Boreali-Americana,' but as his plan is more fully 

 developed in the ' Classification of Birds,' forming part of Lardner's ' Cyclo- 

 paedia,' published in 1836-37, we will confine our attention to the latter work. 

 Of all the authors who have followed the quinary arrangement, Mr. Swainson 

 has carried it to the greatest extent, having in various volumes of Lardner's 

 ' Cyclopaedia' endeavoured to apply it not only to the whole of the Verte- 

 brata, but also to the Mollusca and Insecta. In speaking of Swainson as a 

 quinarian author, it should be explained that he divides his groups in the 

 first instance into three, but as one of these is again divided into three, these 

 last, with the two undivided groups, make up the number Jive (see ' Geog. 

 and Classif. of Animals,' p. 227). His method is therefore only a modifica- 

 tion of the quinary theory, originally propounded by MacLeay and further 

 developed by Vigors. In following Mr. Swainson into the details of his me- 

 thod, we miss the philosophical spirit and logical though not always well- 

 founded reasoning of the two last-named authors. Firmly wedded to a theory, 

 he is driven, in applying it to facts, to the most forced and fanciful conclu- 

 sions. Compelled to show that the component parts of every group assume 

 a circular figure, that they amount in the aggregate to a definite number, 

 into which each of them is again subdivisible, and that there is a system of 

 analogical representation between the corresponding members of every circle, 

 which forms the sole test of its conformity to the natural arrangement, we 

 need not wonder at the difficulties Avith which our author is beset ; and we 

 may certainly admire the ingenuity with which he has grappled with the 

 Protean forms of nature, and forced them into an apparent coincidence with 

 a predetermined system. I need not follow out the details of this Procrus- 



