292 Obsenatiotis on the 



This may appear an exaggerated picture, but I will appeal to any 

 Ornithologist, engaged in the study of species, for its truth. I 

 will appeal to the well-known fact, that the same bird is fre- 

 quently described under two or more different genera in our popular 

 systems ; and to the constant exposure of their defects by conti- 

 nental writers. I will even cite a case in point. The peculiar 

 structure of the tongue, in the genus Meliphaga of Lewen, is 

 well known to most Naturalists : it is formed like a brush, the 

 filaments at the end are tubular, and adapted for sucking the 

 nectar of flowers : all the species, moreover, are natives of New 

 Holland ; they are, in short, as distinct a genus as can well be ima- 

 gined. Yet, it is not a Linncean genus ; and therefore, if a student 

 wishes to ascertain the name of a species, in Dr. Latham's General 

 Synopsis of Birds, or in Shaw's Zoology, he must read the descrip- 

 tions of several hundred birds arranged in the genera Turdus, 

 CerthUi, Merops, and Si/lvia, before he can possibly ascertain one 

 species : for the genus itself is altogether rejected as an innova- 

 tion. 



It is a painful and an ungracious task to animadvert on the 

 works of our contemporaries ; but we must speak plainly, when 

 we see attempts made to bring us back to the infancy of the sci- 

 ence, by the publication of systems, new indeed from the press, — 

 but obsolete in their ideas and language. 



While Botany, therefore, has been progressively advancing, 

 Ornithology has remained nearly stationary. Our elementary 

 books and our voluminous systems, as Mr. Vigors truly observes, 

 speak the language of a remote period ; and display a lament- 

 able picture of our Zoological proficiency to the rest of 

 Europe. Better indeed had there been no such terms as Order 

 and Genus, for they have acted like a magical spell, upon minds 

 that otherwise perhaps might have burst the trammels of nomen- 

 clature, and like Linnaeus, have " dared think for themselves." 



I may perhaps be censured for giving such a humiliating picture 

 of our Ornithological knowledge, and I should have had some 

 hesitation in drawing it, did 1 not see among our rising Natural- 

 ists, some whose talents and whose zeal will not only redeem the 

 past, but take a much higher view of the science than has hitherto 



