222 CATALOGUE OF THE STRIGES, OR NOCTURNAL BIRDS, C. 
How urgent this want was and is, as regards the great 
majority of families and genera, can scarcely be appreciated 
by those at home, but we have only to compare this new cata- 
logue with Bonaparte’s Conspectus, or Schlegel’s Musewm (use- 
ful and admirable as both were in their w ay and time) to see 
how great an advance has been effected. 
Ornithology had just reached a stage when some such 
comprehensive catalogue was a necessity. When some gather- 
ing up and arrangement of the vast confused mass of materials 
collected by hundreds of workers was indispensable as a stand- 
point for further progress, and at the right time, and as we 
think in the right manner, Mr. Sharpe has come forward to 
supply that need. 
Already the publication of the “ Accépitres’” has borne 
fruit in a series of valuable articles by Mr. Gurney, em- 
bracing information which, but for Mr. Sharpe’s labours, he 
might never have put on record, and this is probably one only 
of innumerable similar increments to our knowledge that will 
be heaped upon the platform that our author has so boldly and 
quickly raised. 
We have secured now a definite nucleus, around which facts 
will crystalize rapidly, and when some years hence Mr. Sharpe 
republishes in a more complete form his present work, it will, 
we believe, be found that a most material proportion of the 
progress effected in the interim has been rendered possible 
mainly by the present issue of this first edition. 
To us there seems to be no doubt, that this is eminently a 
case of bis dat qui cito dat, and so far from urging our author 
to delay for purposes of greater elaboration the issue of future 
volumes, we would, on the contrary, exhort him to push on the 
work with the utmost possible rapidity, so that he may secure 
at the earliest moment, for the further revision, of each family, 
the co-operation of the great body of working ornithologists,—a 
co-operation which these volumes renders possible and probable, 
but which without them, could only in rare cases have been 
obtained. 
By all means let us have criticism; the keener and closer 
the better, and for this, we are quite sure, Mr. Sharpe himself 
will be the warmest advocate, for, though the ornithological publie 
do not yet perhaps quite realize it, he is very quietly and cleverly 
killing two birds with one Sane and while ministering to tke 
immediate wants of multitudes, especially of those who labour in 
little trodden fields, and thus rendering rapid progress possible, 
he is also securing the unpaid co- -operation of “all the talents” 
for many years in the correction of these first proofs (for that 
is what they really are) of one important section of the future 
work on which his real reputation with posterity will rest. 
