DICHOTOMOUS SYSTEM EXAMINED. 195 
never, perhaps, ventured upon in any system ; and this 
alone is sufficient to take from the whole scheme any 
pretensions to the claim of a natural series. But the 
merit of Dichotomy, it may be urged, lies in the strength 
of its absolute characters, by which a student can at 
once determine the division to which a genus or a 
species belongs. We will, therefore, test it by this prin- 
ciple. Every ornithologist is aware that the feet of the 
kingfishers (Halcyonide), bee-eaters (Meropide), and 
the puff-birds (T’amatine), have two toes before and two 
behind, but that these families, so far from climbing, 
like the Scansores, are only able to sit still upon a 
branch, and watch for their prey, which they take upon 
the wing after the manner of swallows. Here, then, is 
_ an entire natural division, containing nearly 100 species, 
recognised by all modern writers out which, in this 
dichotomous system, has no place whatever assigned to 
it. Again, the family of tree creepers (Certhide), well 
exemplified both by our common creeper and nuthatch, 
are eminently scansorial, and live, as it were, on the 
upright trunks of trees ; but the student, knowing this, 
and wishing to find their station among the ‘‘ Scansores,”’ 
may search in vain either for one genus or the other. 
To multiply further instances will be needless. It 
appears, therefore, that a dichotomous or binary system 
will not even answer the purpose of an index to the 
genera or species, while it makes pretension to placing 
those groups together which every one sees that nature 
has united. The Linnean arrangement of birds, with all 
its defects, is more natural, and more easy of compre- 
hension. 
(252.) It is quite unnecessary to particularise the dif- 
ferent binary systems which have been published by 
various hands ; since we, no less than our readers, might 
draw up fifty others, each different from the other, and 
each as worthless for use. 
