INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS. v 
fewer species. These species, so many of them as compose any 
particular genus, all differ from one another more or less, but 
yet have a strong general resemblance, or (what may familiarly 
be called) strong family likeness to each other. 
The general scheme or, as I may almost call it, the skeleton of 
our classification will therefore stand thus :— 
ORDER I.—RAPTORES. 
Faminy I. Vaulturide* . . . Vulture-kina 
Il. Faleonide . . . . Falcon-kind. 
. IDL. Strigide . . . . Owl-kind. 
IL.—INSESSORES. 
GROUP ].—DENTIROSTRES (TOOTH-BILLED). 
FaMIty I. Laniade . . . . Butcher-bird-kind. 
Il. Muscicapide . . . Flycatcher-kind. 
Ill. Merulide . . . . Throsh-kind. 
IV. Sylviadet+ . . . Wood-bird-kind. 
* Vulturide, Falconide, and the other similar names of Families are 
most of them, Latin words, with Greek forms or terminations. The true or 
real meaning of any one of them would be, that the birds in the Family so 
named are the children, or descendants, of the bird or birds whose name is 
used—thus, Valturidc, sous of a Vulture or Vultures—which, of course, is 
nonsense, as the words are applied. What is meant by the use of the words 
in question is that the birds grouped together in any one Family, ali parti- 
cipate in some likeness of kind—are, so to speak, “ connections” of each other 
or that there is a sort of kin-ship among them. This I have tried to convey 
in the annexed translation. It ought to be observed also that the Bird 
whose name is given to the entire Family is selected for such purpose as 
possessing the characteristic qualities or peculiarities of the family in ques- 
tion, or, at least, most of them, in the strongest and most marked degree. 
t+ Sylwiade I have translated Wood-bird-kind, because Sylvia means 
something connected with wood, if it means anything. Sylvia is taken, in 
Bird-nomenclature, to denote a Warbler; and it may be said, that most of 
those birds which come under this division are Warblers in some sense, and 
are, in some degree or other, of sylvan habits; at least if we give to the 
word og ae latitude of meaning. 
“aay Ap 
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