134 CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



not fail to benefit science by directing their labours to such an ob- 

 ject. This being the case, it only remains to consider the plan and 

 character of the work before us, of which only the first volume is at 

 present vouchsafed to the piiblic. 



There is one feature in Mr. IMacGillivray's book which, in our 

 opinion, places it above all others on the same subject that have 

 fallen under our notice ; we allude to the observations on the inter- 

 nal structure of birds, minute particulars being given, not only of 

 the class, but of each species. By precedina: British ornithologists 

 anatomy has been undeservedly neglected, their observations on this 

 topic being, in general, few and meagre. Some continental natu- 

 ralists, on the other hand, have erred in the opposite extreme, and 

 conferred an undue importance on internal organization as a guide 

 to classification. Cuvier's Regiie Animal may be adduced as a strik- 

 ing instance of this, and also, we must add, the present Hislory of 

 iWr. MacGillivray. The system of the latter author does not differ 

 materially from those propounded by various other writers, and long 

 since exploded ; and although he occasionally indulges in ridicule at 

 the incongruities presented, according to his ideas, by quinary and 

 other systematists, yet what can we say to his classing the Bee- 

 eaters with the Swallows and Goatsuckers, and the Dippers with 

 the Kingfishers ? In so far as the three first-named genera may all 

 be termed Volitatores, they unquestionably agree, and for ought we 

 know to the contrary the internal structure may countenance the 

 arrangement ; but, taking all circumstances together, it cannot be 

 considered otherwise than unnatural. As regards the Dipper (Cin- 

 clus), its relationship to the Turdidce, but more especially to the 

 Ouzels, and most of all to the Garden Ouzel CMericln hortensisj, is 

 so striking and obvious that we cannot but wonder at their separa- 

 tion by our author. The Garden Ouzel, though not partial to 

 rocky streams, is a great lover of water ; and we have seen the 

 young of this species, before the tail was fully grown, so like the 

 Dipper in form, colour, and habits, that a very slight stretch of 

 the imagination might have converted the one species into the other. 

 The tail of the Garden Ouzel, both old and young, is often cocked 

 up in the manner of the Dipper, and the white breast of the latter 

 — which, in a somewhat different shape, is found in the Ring Ouzel 

 — appears to be alone wanting to render the illusion complete. It 

 has been the common fault of nearly every author who has tried his 

 hand at system-making to attend too exclusively to the one particu- 

 lar part of a bird which he considers most important for his purpose. 

 Thus, Linneus fixed upon the bill, Vieillot the claws, Cuvier the 

 internal organs, and so on. Tolerable classifications may be, and 

 have been, formed from these and other characters taken separately ; 

 but we conceive that, to obtain anything like a " natural system," 

 every part of the bird, both external and internal, must be examined. 

 In our opinion the internal structure, taken alone, affords even a 

 less eligible foundation for a system than an exclusive attention to 

 the outward organs ; and certainly if the classification of Mr. Mac- 



