classifications of birds proposed by the authors already cited ; but a 

 discussion of the merits of each would occupy more space than can 

 Avell be afforded on the present occasion, and the student is there- 

 fore referred for information on these points to the works themselves. 

 It may be right however to state, that the system followed by the 

 writer is neither dichotomous, quinary, nor septenary, but one which 

 he hopes may be considered natural, inasmuch as it is founded on 

 similarity of habits and the relations of external character and struc- 

 ture. It may be regarded as based on the arrangements of M. Cu- 

 vier and Mr. Vigors, with such improvements as in his view of the 

 subject could be gleaned from those of Mr. Swainson and others. 



It may be as well to add that the list contains some genei'a esta- 

 blished, in the opinion of the writer, upon characters too trivial to 

 admit of their being definitively adopted ; but it has not been his in- 

 tention here closely to criticize the value of the subdivisions em- 

 ployed. On the contrary, he has thought that he should perform a 

 more acceptable service, by giving, as far as he is able, a correct no- 

 tion of all the genera that have been proposed in this branch of 

 science, leaving it to the judgement of each individual who chooses 

 to pursue the subject, to select those which he considers tenable, and 

 to erase the rest. He agrees with Mr. Vigors, that " no individual 

 possesses the right of dictating what are, and what are not, good 

 generic groups, or of erasing from the list of genera those of his fel- 

 low naturalists which may not exactly square with his own parti- 

 cular view." Indeed the writer is of opinion, that not only in lists 

 of this kind, but also in monographs of species, all the information 

 should , be conveyed that may assist the student ; and he strongly 

 objects therefore to the pi'actice which has been followed by seve- 

 ral modern writers of such works, of excluding all that they have 

 not themselves seen, and thus casting a doubt upon the accuracy 

 of their predecessors, and at the same time leaving an opening for 

 the description of objects as new, which have already been well 

 described, but are thus improperly cast into oblivion. 



Those genera which are not at present contained in the collection 

 of the British Museum are marked with an asterisk ; by which it 

 will be seen that although the collection has so rapidly increased, 

 (especially within the last few years,) as to contain no fewer than 



