308 Mr. Vigors's Sketches in Ornithology. 



Art. XLIII. — Sketches in Ornithology ; or, Observations 

 on the leading Affinities of some of the more extensive 

 groups of Birds. By N. A. Vigors, jun. Esq. A. M. 

 F. L. S. 



In a science, which, like Natural History, is founded upon facts, 

 and which is indebted to actual observation for the most impor- 

 tant of its materials, it is evidently more conducive to its advance- 

 ment to exhibit occasionally the progress which it has made, than 

 to delay in fruitless expectation of being enabled to exhibit it in 

 perfection. Every day's experience convinces us of the exhaust- 

 less nature of the sources from whence our information is derived, 

 and the impractibility of completing our acquaintance with even 

 a single family or genus. In the very groups where we fancy our 

 knowledge to be most perfect, we find new species coming in, 

 new modifications of form springing up, and new inferences de- 

 ducible from them, which still call for additional attention ; and 

 these arising not only from foreign sources, but from those imme- 

 diately around us. A faint outline even of those groups which 

 appear most within our observation is the utmost we can hope to 

 delineate. And to withold our discoveries upon what has actually 

 come before us, in order to add all that may hereafter throw light 

 upon the subject, to wait in short for perfection, is to linger, like 

 the countryman in Horace, — dum defluat amnis, — in idle expec- 

 tation that the stream of Nature will pass by, and the sources of 

 our information be exhausted. 



It is in this point of view that a journal, like the present, ap- 

 pears eminently useful to science. It affords a channel through 

 which the Naturalist is able to diffuse the current information of 

 the day: giving instant circulation to every useful discovery as it 

 arises, and every interesting fact as it becomes known. Through 

 such a medium the inquirer into nature has an opportunity of 

 stating the results of his researches as he advances ; correcting his 

 errours as he detects them, and confirming or annulling his pre- 

 vious conjectures as he finds them corroborated or falsified by 

 experience. The concurrent observations of contemporary writers 



