INTRODUCTION. 47 



The great majority of the order are of compara- 

 tively small size. 



Amidst this number of beings to be charac- 

 terized, there has been unquestionably much 

 difficulty, and considerable difference in the 

 opinions of our systematists. The most of whom 

 have considered what are placed as the subordi- 

 nate divisions by the latest writers in a higher 

 place, and have thus made their systems to con- 

 sist of a much greater number of primary divi- 

 sions, although, when the whole was analyzed, the 

 discrepancies consisted more in the comparative 

 value of the different parts, than in the points or 

 boundaries within which each was contained. 

 In the Systema Naturae, the orders are six in 

 number, and correspond nearly with those at 

 present advocated, the piece and passeres only 

 being thrown together in the group we have now 

 under consideration. In the Regne Animal, the 

 orders are also six, the incessores of moderns 

 being there still divided, though the separation is 

 differently effected, the scansores (grimpeurs) 

 being kept by themselves. By Illiger we have 

 seven orders proposed, occasioned by the division 

 of the grallatores, as well as the incessores, and 

 in most of the systems where the number of 

 primary divisions run between five and seven, or 

 eight, it will be seen to be caused by the splitting 

 of these two orders. When they extend beyond 

 that number, as in the system of Temminck, 

 composed of sixteen orders, and of others having 

 even more, we have only a still farther separation 



