CLASSIFICATIOATION IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 19 



should also be members of the board. The business of the board, as 

 suchj would be almost exclusively deliberative — to decide upon what 

 information should be collected, and to devise the best forms in which 

 it should be submitted, so that the statistics of one branch might 

 harmonize with, and throw light upon, those of another. I may give 

 an example of what I mean : The trade and navigation returns shew 

 the amount of timber and lumber exported, and the report of the 

 Commissioner of Crown Lands gives the statistics of the several 

 timber agencies ; but from want of concert between the two depart- 

 ments, the forms in which the returns are exhibited make it impossi- 

 ble to connect the two sources of information upon this most vital 

 portion of our industry, so as to trace the article from the various 

 sources from which it was produced, to the quarters in which it found 

 a market. The board would only lay down a general plan; the indi- 

 vidual members would each be responsible, as part of the business of 

 his own department, and with his own staff, to collect the information 

 required. The only other thing required, besides the occasional 

 assistance of copyists, would be a thoroughly competent secretary, 

 with perhaps, one clerk, who would collect some of the returns, and 

 superintend and publish the whole. 



REMARKS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF CLASSIFICATION IN 

 THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, IN IMMEDIATE REFERENCE 

 TO A RECENT PAPER BY J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S., 

 PRINCIPAL OF McGILL COLLEGE, MONTREAL. 



BY THE REV. WILLIAM HINCKS, F.L.S., 



PEOPESSOE OF NATUEAL HISTOET, IH UNIVEESITT COLLEGE, TOEONTO. 



(Read hefore the Canadian Institute, January 2StIi, 1865.^ 



The number of the Canadian Naturalist, for August, contains a 

 paper by Dr. Dawson, of Montreal, (of which he has also obligingly 

 favored me with a separate copy), entitled "Elementary Views of 

 the Classification of Animals." The opinions of naturalists on the 



