CLASSIFICATION. 17 



certain d agree of affinity between the Humming- 

 birds and the Swifts an affinity, we have rea- 

 son to believe, admitted to a certain extent by 

 Mr. Gould. 



On referring to the " Conspectus Systematis 

 Ornithologiae" (1849), by Charles Lucien Bona- 

 parte, Prince of Canino, we find, under his third 

 order Passeres, tribe one, Folucres, first in ar- 

 rangement the Goat-suckers, next the Swifts, 

 next the Humming-birds; the true Swallows 

 being placed before the Shrikes, in his second 

 tribe of the same order, viz. Oscines. 



The same acute zoologist, in his " Conspectus 

 G-enerum Avium," adopts, as far as the Swifts 

 and the Humming-birds are concerned, the 

 same arrangement; having, therefore, greatly 

 modified his views since the publication of his 

 "Specchio Comparative" (1827), and of his 

 " Birds of Europe and North America" (1838). 



While, however, we thus venture a not un- 

 supported opinion that the Humming-birds are 

 to a certain degree related to the Swifts, we do 

 not, therefore, mean to deny that their place is 

 taken in Africa and India by the Sun-birds. In 

 both groups, the great end of their existence is 

 to check the overbalance of the minuter species 

 of the insect tribes, which crowd the nectaries 

 of flowers, and prove injurious to the develop- 

 ment of the capsules. 



There is a great lav 1 ;, universally prevalent 

 throughout nature a law of destruction, by the 

 c 



