174 Jl/r. ViGOKs's and Dr. IIousi-ielu's Description of the 



before him ; and he ecjually saw, that the limits allotted to the 

 life and the labours of man did not permit himself to enter it. 

 But he lived suthciently Ions; to conduct the followers of nature 

 to the Pisgah of science, and to show them, in his prophetic 

 admonitions, the abundance of the territory M'hich lay within 

 their reach, and the paths through which they might hope to 

 occupy that land of promise. It is not, we conceive, too pre- 

 sumptuous to affirm*, that he would himself have followed the 

 same paths which we are now all ]iursuing in conformity with his 

 instructions, had he lived to accompany and regulate our move- 

 ments. 



AVere there to exist, however, a case in Avhich it would be 

 allowable for a disciple of Linnœus to depart not only from his 

 mode of nomenclature, but even from his general principles, that 

 case is now before us. The subjects which we have attempted 

 to arrange come from a countrj' scarcely more than the name of 

 which was known in the days of Linnaeus. And it is to be 

 recollected, that in the variety and novelty of the forms of its 

 animal productions, that country presents an almost totally in- 

 sulated character. Amono- the number of birds which are now 

 in the Society's museum, and which are daily increasing our 

 Australian collections, not much above ten, certainly not twenty, 

 species could have come under the inspection of Linnœus ; and 

 these are species merely which are common to the islands of the 



* ]n hazarding tlie above assertion, we shelter ourselves under the following obser- 

 vations of one of the most acute and scientific naturalists of our age ; — " Jam hujus loci 

 non est, magnum numerum novorum generum contra illos defendere, qui omnes spe- 

 cies, quamvis alienissimas, ad genera Linnajana revocari jubent. Mihi certe sententia 

 Stat, Liiiiucum, iibi omnes species hodie notas vidisset, primiim ipsiim in novis generibiis 

 condendisjuisse ; ut vera erga viriun immortalem veneratio nobis injungat, ea quas ali- 

 orum erroribus inductus male disposuerat, aut quœ cum generibus ejus non bene con- 

 gruunt, rectius distinguere et apte coUocare; quod il/iits Jussu fecisse videhimur." — 

 lUiger, Prod. Mamni. et Av. p. siii. 



Indian 



