146 ON SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY. 
wide apart, and the introduction of the aquatic orders 
into the gap: so that our author commenced in this 
class, as he had already done in the Mammalia, with 
making a retrograde movement in science, by attempting 
to annul the previous arrangements of the great Ari- 
stotle. In this respect his system is certainly inferior to 
that of Willughby, which, however obscure and confused 
in other respects, preserved a clear distinction between 
the land and the water birds. Even the most devoted 
followers of the Systema Nature —as Pennant, Latham, 
Shaw,&c.—prctested against this violation of nature, and 
rejected it. As to the division of the perching birds 
into the two orders, of Pice and Passeres, we can 
only account for it by supposing that Linneus thought 
the order itself, although natural, was too large for 
artificial arrangement : but in that case, one would have 
thought, he would have done as M. Cuvier afterwards 
did ; that is, keep the perching birds in one order, and 
place the climbers in another: this would have been more 
easy of comprehension either in a natural or an artificial 
system. With the exception, however, of this oversight, 
the remaining of the Linnean orders are similar to those 
long before understood by Aristotle; and, indeed, so 
obvious to every one, that it would have been surprising 
had they escaped notice. 
(200.) The genera arranged under these orders will 
now be enumerated. Nothing, perhaps, will show more 
forcibly the admirable clearness and precision with which 
this extraordinary man perceived and defined the es- 
sential or most striking character of his groups, than the 
short synopsis by which each of these genera are cha~ 
racterised. 
I. Acciritres. Birds of Prey. Upper mandible with an 
angular projection. — 
Vultur. Vultur. Bill hooked, naked. 
Falco. Hawk. Bill hooked, covered at the base with a cere. 
Strix. Owl. Bill hooked, with a frontlet of covered bris- 
tles. 
Lanius. Shrike. Bill straightish, notched. —~ 
