Family of Laniadce. 293 



been done in this, or any other country. Ornithology is neither a 

 study of names, nor of feathers ; it neither consists in giving to a 

 bird a name, nor in describing the colours of its plumage: but ra- 

 ther teaches us to enquire what place it occupies in creation ; what 

 functions it is destined by Almighty Wisdom to perform; how 

 its organization corresponds to these functions ; and lastly, its 

 various relations to other animated beings. 



It is to facilitate such enquiries, which shed a ray of dignity and 

 importance on the study of Nature, hitherto obscured by the mis- 

 taken zeal of nomenclators, that I have put together the following 

 observations. Whatever errors they may contain I feel confident 

 will meet with most indulgence from those who are best able to 

 understand the difficulty of the undertaking. It is a new and 

 intricate field of enquiry; which, to the honor of Britain, has 

 been opened to us by one of her sons ;* but is nevertheless attend- 

 ed with peculiar embarrassments to English Naturalists, from the 

 acknowledged poverty of our Public Collections, and the total 

 want of Zoological instruction, + which our students have to con- 

 tend against. Let us hope these deficiencies, which have now 

 become a national reproach, will be soon supplied by a wise legis- 

 lature. 



Lanian^. 



The Shrikes present so many characters analogous to the Falco- 

 nulce, or true birds of prey, that the most eminent Naturalists have 

 disagreed as to their true situation. By Ray they are placed with 

 the Accipitres ; and this example was followed by Linnaeus. On 

 the other hand Brisson considered them as more closely allied to 

 the Thrushes. The opinion of M. Temminck has tlucluated ; 

 for in the first edition of the Matiuel iVOrnithologie, this' Natural- 



* I need hardly explain, that I here allude to the profound observations 

 contained in the Horae Entomologica; of Mr. William S. MacLeay. 



+ Well may the foreigner who beholds our learned establishments, so splen- 

 didly endowed, note, among the most remarkable circumstances attending 

 them, that ia none whatever should there be a Zoological chair. — Ilor. Ent, 

 2 p, 456. note. 



