ORDER ACCIPITRES. 91 



of those which have been definitively adopted by modern natu- 

 ralists, with this difference, that the latter are based on cha- 

 racters derived from external forms which were not used by 

 Belon and Johnston. 



The Ornithology of Willoughby, which appeared in 1678, is 

 the origin of methods founded on external characters. The 

 forms of the beak and feet are particularly adopted as the basis 

 of his divisions ; and like the naturalists before mentioned, he 

 uses the habits and modes of subsistence as distinctive of the 

 groups which he admits, and which are twenty in number. 

 The first eighteen divisions are composed of terrestrial birds^ 

 and the two last of aquatic. 



Ray, in his Synopsis, follows with veiy little variation the 

 method of Willoughby. He uses, however, new characters 

 derived more especially from the number of feathers in the 

 tail, and the internal structure of the body. 



Barrere, in 1741, instead of profiting by the judicious direc- 

 tion given to ornithology by the two last-mentioned writers, 

 published a method totally artificial, in which the most different 

 birds are ranged side by side, and those which approximate 

 most in their organisation are separated by considerable dis- 

 tances. 



The work of Klein is another artificial system just as unsa- 

 tisfactory as that of Barrere. He has founded his first division 

 on the number of toes, which has led him to class in one family 

 birds totally different in all the rest of their organisation, and 

 in their mode of living. 



On the arrangement of Linnaeus we shall not dilate, as we 

 have already laid a tabular view of it before our readers in 

 another place. We shall merely remark that his classification 

 is one of the best that has ever been published in respect to the 

 divisions and subdivisions of orders. Four of these orders are 

 still generally retained ; namely, the accipitres, grallse, gallinae, 

 and anseres. Some genera, indeed, are not placed suitably 

 to the characters of the division under which they are found : 



