354 Auduhoii's Ornithology, First Volume, 



nous. The different kinds of these birds are so well marked by 

 the hand of nature, that the rudest and most unskilled observer 

 can at once distinguish them and separate them into their three 

 natural genera of owls, hawks, and vultures. Why mystify, then, 

 what is in itself so simple ? What is to be gained by manufac- 

 turing genera where no generic characters exist on the surface ? 

 Certainly nothing to simplify, nothing to benefit science. A falcon 

 is still a falcon, no matter whether it have the compact form, the 

 talons and beak of an eagle — whether it have a swallow-tail, a 

 wing longer than tail, a collar round its neck, or whatever specific 

 difference may exist. Why then, where nature has given us but 

 one genus, and that one as distinctly defined as any in the ani- 

 mal kingdom, create twenty others from mere specific character- 

 istics ? Twenty three American hawks, and nearly half as many 

 genera ! And if we are to have a genus for nearly every species 

 that may differ from the genus to which it naturally belongs, 

 why is not the principle carried out every where ? Why, for in- 

 stance, if the Falco furcatus is to be separated from its kindred, 

 and marked off into a genus by itself, because it has a swallow 

 tail, why are the purple martins, the white-bellied swallow, and 

 the barn swallow, with their forked tails, put in the same genus 

 as the cliff swallow, with its tail perfectly square ? If the night- 

 hawk is to be separated from the goat sucker because it has no 

 bristles at the base of its mandible, why is not the Hirundo serri- 

 pennis made into a distinct genus because it has spines where no 

 others of the genus Hirundo are known to have them ? In short, 

 we think the quinary system a very objectionable one, tending 

 to perplex and mystify the science of ornithology, with no sub- 

 stantial foundation — indeed with none at all, beyond the acci- 

 dental whims and caprice of its founders. We regret therefore 

 the necessity under which Mr. Audubon felt himself to lend to it 

 the weight of his authority, by adopting it. We mean to con- 

 vey no censure whatever upon him for having done so. For 

 while we know full well there is no one more fully sensible of 

 its imperfections than he, we know too that it was only because 

 he would be exposed to the hasty and unjust censure of foreign 

 critics if he did not do so, that he submitted to the necessity of 

 the case. We all know the sneering manner in which his first 

 work was spoken of by an English naturalist, very far Mr. Au- 

 dubon's inferior in every respect, solely because he had not seen 



