ORNITHOLOGY 



15 



steadily onwards in their efforts to describe and group the 

 various species of Birds, as oue after another they were 

 made known. But this was not always to be, and 

 Quinary now a few words must be said respecting a theory 

 system, which was promulgated with great zeal by its upholders 

 during the end of the first and early part of the second 

 quarter of the present century, and for some years seemed 

 likely to carry all before it. The success it gained was 

 doubtless due in some degree to the difficulty which most 

 men had in comprehending it, for it was enwrapped in 

 alluring mystery, but more to the confidence with which 

 it was announced as being the long looked-for key to the 

 wonders of creation, since its promoters did not hesitate to 

 term it the discovery of " the Natural System," though 

 they condescended, by way of explanation to less exalted 

 intellects than their own, to allow it the more moderate 

 appellation of the Circular or Quinary System. 



A comparison of the relation of created beings to a number of 

 intersecting circles is as old as the days of Nieremberg, who in 

 1635 wrote (Ilistoria, Natural, lib. iii. cap. 3) — " Nullus hiatus est, 

 nulla fractio, nulla dispersio ibrmarum, invicem eonnexa sunt velut 

 annulus annulo"; but it is almost clear that he was thinking only 

 of a chain. In 1S06 Fischer de W.aldheim, in his Tableaux 

 Synoptiques de zoognosie (p. 181), quoting Nieremberg, extended 

 his figure of speech, and, while justly deprecating the notion that 

 the series of forms belonging to any particular group of creatures— 

 the Mammalia was that whence he took his instance— could be 

 placed in a straight line, imagined the various genera to be arrayed 

 in a series of contiguous circles around Man as a centre. Though 

 there is nothing to shew that Fischer intended, by what is here 

 said, to do anything else than illustrate more fully the marvellous 

 interconnexion of different animals, or that he attached any realistic 

 meaning to his metaphor, his words were eagerly caught up by the 

 Macleay. prophet of the new faith. This was William Sharpe Macleay, 

 a man of education and real genius, who in 1819 and 1821 brought 

 out a work under the title of Horie Entomological, which was soon 

 Vigors, after hailed by Vigors as containing a new revelation, and applied 

 by him to Ornithology in some " Observations on the Natural 

 Affinities that connect the Orders and Families of Birds," read 

 before the Linnean Society of London in 1823, and afterwards 

 published in its Transactions (xiv. pp. 395-517). In the following 

 year Vigors returned to the subject in some papers published in the 

 recently established Zoological Journal, and found an energetic 

 Swain- eondisciple and coadjutor in Swainson, who, for more than a 

 son. dozen years — to the end, in fact, of his career as an ornithological 



writer — was instant in season and out of season in pressing on all 

 his readers the views he had, through Vigors, adopted from 

 Macleay, though not without some modification of detail if not of 

 principle. What these views were it would be manifestly improper 

 for a sceptic to state except in the terms of a believer. Their 

 enunciation must therefore be given in Swainson's own words, 

 though it must be admitted that space cannot be found here for 

 the diagrams, which it was alleged were necessary for the right 

 understanding of the theory. This theory, as originally pro- 

 pounded by Macleay, was said by Swainson in 1S35 (Geogr. and 

 Classific. of Animals, p. 202) to have consisted of the following 

 propositions : ] — 



" 1. That the series of natural animals is continuous, forming, 

 as it were, a circle ; so that, upon commencing at any one given 

 poir ., and thence tracing all the modifications of structure, we 

 shall be imperceptibly led, after passing through numerous forms, 

 again to the point from which we started. 



" 2. That no groups are natural which do not exhibit, or show 

 an evident tendency to exhibit, such a circular series. 



" 3. That the primary divisions of every large group are ten, five 

 of which are composed of comparatively large circles, and five of 

 smaller : these latter being termed osculant, and being intermediate 

 between the former, which they serve to connect. 



" 4. That there is a tendency in such groups as are placed at the 

 opposite points of a circle of affinity 'to meet each other.' 



' 5. That one of the five larger groups into which every natural 

 circle is divided ' bears a resemblance to all the rest, or, more strictly 

 speaking, consists of types which represent those of each of the four . 

 other groups, together with a type peculiar to itself. ' " 



As subsequently modified by Swainson (torn. cit. pp. 224, 225), 

 the foregoing propositions take the following form : — 



" I. That every natural series of beings, in its progress from 



1 We prefer giving them here in Swainson's version, because lie 

 seems to have set them forth more clearly and concisely than Macleay 

 ever did, and, moreover, Swainson's application of them to Ornithology 

 — a branch of science that lay outside of Macleay's proper studies — 

 appears to be more suitable to the present occasion. 



a given point, either actually returns, or evinces a tendency to 

 return, again to that point, thereby forming a circle. 



"II. The primary circular divisions of every group are three 

 actually, or live apparently. 



" III. The contents of such a circular group are symbolically (or 

 analogically) represented by the contents of all other circles in the 

 animal kingdom. 



" IV. That these primary divisions of every group are character- 

 ized by definite peculiarities of form, structure, and economy, 

 which, under diversified modifications, are uniform throughout the 

 animal kingdom, and are therefore to be regarded as the primary 

 types of nature. 



" V. That the different ranks or degrees of circular groups 

 exhibited in the animal kingdom are nine in number, each being 

 involved within the other." 



Though, as above stated, the theory here promulgated owed its 

 temporary success chiefly to the extraordinary assurance and perti- 

 nacity with which it was urged upon a public generally incapable 

 of understanding what it meant, that it received some support from 

 men of science must be admitted. A " circular system " was 

 advocated by the eminent botanist Fries, and the views of Marl, ay 

 met with the partial approbation of the celebrated entomologist 

 Kirby, while at least as much may be said of the imaginative 

 Okf.n, whose mysticism far surpassed that of the Quinarians. But 

 it is obvious to every one who nowadays indulges in the profitless 

 pastime of studying their writings that, as a whole, they failed in 

 grasping the essential difference between homology (or "affinity," 

 as they generally termed it) and analogy (which is only a learned 

 name for an uncertain kind of resemblance)— though this difference 

 had been fully understood and set forth by Aristotle himself — and, 

 moreover, that in seeking for analogies on which to base their 

 foregone conclusions they were often put to hard shifts. Another 

 singular fact is that they often seemed to be totally unaware of the 

 tendency if not the meaning of some of their own expressions : thus 

 Macleay could write, and doubtless in perfect gooel faith ( Trans. 

 Linn. Society, xvi. p. 9, note), " Naturalists have nothing to do 

 with mysticism, and but little with a priori reasoning." Yet his 

 followers, if not he himself, were ever making use of language in 

 the highest degree metaphorical, and were always explaining facts 

 in accordance with preconceived opinions. Fleming, already the Fleming, 

 author of a harmless and extremely orthodox Thilosophy of Zoology, 

 pointed out in 1S29 in the Quarterly liiciew (xli. pp. 302-327) 

 some of the fallacies of Macleay's method, and in return provoked 

 from him a reply, in the form of a letter addressed to Vigors On 

 the Dying Struggle of the Dichotomous System, couched in language 

 the force of which no one even at the present day can deny, though 

 to the modern naturalist its invective power contrasts ludicrously 

 with the strength of its ratiocination. But, confining ourselves to 

 what is here our special business, it is to be remarked that perhaps 

 the heaviest blow dealt at these strange doctrines was that delivered 

 by Rennie, who, in an edition of Montagu's Ornithological 

 Dictionary (pp. xxxiii-lv), published in 1831 and again issued in 

 1S33, attacked the Quinary System, and especially its application 

 to Ornithology by Vigors and Swainson, in a way that might 

 perhaps have demolished it, had not the author mingled with his 

 undoubtedly sound reasoning much that is foreign to any question 

 with which a naturalist, as such, ought to deal — though that 

 herein he was only following the examplo of one of his opponents, 

 who had constantly treated the subject in like manner, is to be 

 allowed. This did not hinder Swainson, who had succeeded in 

 getting the ornithological portion of the first zoological work ever 

 published, at the expense of the British Government (namely, the 

 Fauna Soreali-Americana) executed in accordance with his own 

 opinions, from maintaining them more strongly than ever in 

 several of the volumes treating of Natural History which he con- 

 tributed to the Cabinet Cyclopaedia — among others that from which 

 we have just given some extracts — and in what may be deemed the 

 culmination in England of the Quinary System, the volume of the 

 "Naturalist's Library" on The Natural Arrangement and History 

 of Flycatchers, published in 1S38, of which unhappy performance 

 mention has already been made in this present work (vol. ix. p. 

 350, note). This seems to have been his last attempt ; for, two 

 years later, his Bibliography of Zoology shows little trace of his 

 favourite theory, though nothing he had uttered in its support was 

 retracted. Appearing almost simultaneously with this work, an 

 article by Strickland (Mag. Nat. History, ser. 2, iv. pp. 219-226) Strick- 

 entitled Observations upon the Affinities and Analogies of Organ- land. 

 . si d Beings administered to the theory a shock from which it 

 never recovered, though attempts were now and then made by its 

 adherents to revive it ; and, even ten years or more later, Kaup, 

 one of the few foreign ornithologists who had embraced Quinary 

 principles, was by mistaken kindness allowed to publish Mono- 

 graphs of the Birds-of-Prey (Jardine's Contributions to Ornithology, 

 1S49, pp. 68-75, 96-121; 1850, pp. 51-80; 1851, pp. 119-130; 

 1852, pp. 103-122 ; and Trans. Zool. Society, iv. pp. 201-260), in 

 which its absurdity reached the climax. 

 The mischief caused by this theory of a Quinary System was 



