NATURE 



525 



THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1879 



JOHANNES MUELLERS CLASSIFICATION OF 

 PASSERES 



Johannes Milller on Certain Variations in the Vocal 

 Organs of the Passer es that have hitherto escaped Notice. 

 The Translation by F. Jeffrey Bell, B.A. Edited, with 

 an Appendix, by A. H. Garrod, M.A., F.R.S. (Oxford, 

 at the Clarendon Press, 1878.) 4to. Plates. 



MORE than thirty years ago was this celebrated 

 treatise, now translated by Mr. Bell, published, 

 but without attracting any notice in this country. It is 

 true that some twelve months after the author's investiga- 

 tions were first communicated to the Academy of Sciences 

 of Berlin Qune 26, 1845), a brief abstract of them 

 appeared in what was then, as it still is, our leading bio- 

 logical magazine {Ann. Nat. Hist., xvii. p. 499), but no 

 one here seems to have thought them worthy of further 

 attention. Indeed, the principal British ornithologists 

 had so long gone astray in pursuit of that will-o'-the- 

 wisp— the "Quinary System," which seemed to have 

 been revealed to the obscure vision of Vigors, and had so 

 completely mystified themselves with hazy specula- 

 tions concerning circles, types, affinities, and all the 

 jargon of what was so loudly proclaimed to be the 

 "Natural Arrangement," that it would have been hope- 

 less to expect them to return to the paths of common 

 sense. Their successors had to make the best of what 

 was before them, and that best was obviously to leave 

 it alone : for they doubtless found, even as we find to 

 day, that all which had been written by the Quinarians 

 was hopelessly unintelligible.' Preached, however, as 

 this doctrine constantly was, amid terrific maledictions 

 on all who hesitated to receive the "Circular System" as 

 the orthodox faith, they were content to let its results 

 pass unquestioned, and thus the "Natural" Orders and 

 other groups, which were the invention of Vigors and 

 some of his followers, were silently accepted, and they 

 continued to be adopted by most British ornithologists 

 until very recently, if indeed they have now gone wholly 

 to their rest. There is nothing extraordinary in all this. 

 No disputant is so difficult to overthrow as a mystic, and 

 a mystic your Quinarian certainly was. He could, more- 

 over — and the fact is worthy of note, since mystics are 

 seldom so highly accomplished — ^vrite long and smooth 

 sentences, irreproachable as to style or grammar, gene- 

 rally not deficient (allowance being made for certain false 



' The Quinarian system has so completely dropped out of use, that 

 readers of this generation may he at a loss to find out what it really was. 

 We therefore present ihem With the following " Symbolum K idei," drawn 

 up by a very orth dox Quinanan (Mr. Neville Wood), in 1836, in the hope 

 that It will convey clear ideas to them : — " The first and fundamental prm- 

 ciple inculcated by Macleay and his isciples is, that all nature moves in a 

 circle, and that the series of beings is unbroken; and, secondly, that each 

 grouD and each species has a double affinity. Every one of the higher 

 groups has a b.nary division, viz. the normal or typical, and the aberrant, 

 the former contain.ng two, and the latter three, of the five subdivisions of 

 which each of the higher gr.jups is composed. We cannot here explain the 

 doctrine of analogy — which is wholly distinct from affinity — but we can 

 give an instance of it : — the Hedge Ounnock in the Sylviada represents the 

 House Sparrow in the Fringtilida ; that is, the one bears the same relation 

 to the Sylviadie that the other does to the Fringillida, and hence they are 

 said to bear an analogy to each other. The whole zoological ser.es, before 

 arranged in a simple cha.n, according to this system revolves in an almost 

 infinite number of circles around man, from whom they may be said to 

 degrade on all sides." It is pleasing to observe that a little further on the 

 author states that " no one who supposes the Quinary System, or any part 

 of it, to lead to Atheism, can rightly understand its princq>les. "—OrmMtf- 

 lofist's Text-book, pp. 30, 31. 



Vol. XIX. — No. 493 



premisses) in logical arrangement, sometimes distinctly 

 marked by wit, and always abounding in metaphor. They 

 only lacked a plain meaning. If you pleaded that it was 

 not easy to distinguish the boundaries of the metaphorical 

 and the real, he politely intimated in reply that you 

 were an ass, and deluged you with another torrent of 

 mystic verbiage of the same kind. On raising further 

 objection, your Quinarian began to lose his temper, and, 

 metaphorically shaking "a bunch of fives" (namely, his 

 fist) in your face, discharged at you a volley of well- 

 assorted epithets, about the reality of which there could 

 be no doubt. This is absolutely no exaggeration of some 

 of the characteristics of the Quinarian controversy which 

 may be found in certain publications since 1823, when 

 Vigors unhappily began to apply to Ornithology the sense- 

 less fantasies which Macleay had a short time before 

 evolved from the depths of his own imagination. Good 

 work, verj'good work, was no doubt being done in the mean- 

 while by some British ornithologists, but the good work was 

 wholly of a limited and special kind. Generalised or 

 broad views were either not taken at all, or, if attempted, 

 were propounded by men of comparatively poor ability, 

 men who were unable to see their way through the baleful 

 fogs that the Quinarian magicians had conjured up around 

 them. It is not too much toeay that for some forty years 

 British ornithologists were wandering in a wilderness of 

 words. Temminck's "Manuel d'Omithologie," the 

 second edition of which was published in 1820, and 

 speedily became well known in England, it is true, kept 

 some, who regarded it as a kind of gospel, from being 

 utterly bewildered by the cloudy dreams of the Quinarians, 

 for Temminck was a simple-minded Dutchman, who had 

 no philosophical or pseudo-philosophical theories to sup- 

 port, no circular visions to relate, and no metaphorical 

 phrases wherewith to encumber his statements. He 

 wrote in French, and if his language appeared to Vieillot 

 not to be the pure French of the Academic Fran^aise, it 

 Avas easily understood by most Englishmen, and he con- 

 sequently exercised an enormous influence on their mind 

 — an influence which in time produced evil effects, though 

 that is at present no business of ours to show. 



During this period of darkness in England there were, 

 however investigators in other lands pursuing what is 

 now obvious to all to have been the right road. Unfor- 

 tunately their investigations were published so as to be 

 practically inaccessible to our countrymen, and the results 

 at which they arrived were utterly unknoAvn to British 

 ornithologists. Thus we find Strickland, by far the best- 

 informed man of his calling and time, saying, in 1844, 

 that the labours of Wagler^ and Nitzsch "have not fallen 

 under my inspection." Accustomed as we are in these 

 days to the rapid exchange of publications with our 

 continental brethren, we might regard this at first sight 

 to be a grave shortcoming, but commercial and postal 

 facilities of intercourse with fellow- workers in foreign 

 countries did not exist, and we are prepared to maintain 

 that no very great blame is to be ascribed to British 

 ornithologists of that epoch for not knowing what was 

 being done abroad. The fault lay beyond them. There 

 was first the heavy import duty on foreign books, which pre- 



« Referring probably to his " NatuiBches System " of 1830, tat bis 

 "Systema Avium" of 1827 had long before bieea reviewed in Englantj 

 {Zool. Joum. iii. p. 465). 



AA 



