THE EUROPEAN PROVINCE. 19 



consequently selected from the department of ornithology 

 those facts which appeared to authorise us in consider- 

 ing Europe as one of the primary zoological divisions of 

 the earth ; and shall now proceed to lay these facts^ and 

 the inferences, before the reader. It has, indeed, been 

 objected to this class of animals, that no very certain 

 results can attend the study of their distribution. Pos- 

 sessing the powers of locomotion in a higher degree 

 than any others, and by their migratory nature per- 

 petually wandering into distant countries, they would 

 seem, of all animals, the most widely dispersed, and con- 

 sequently the least calculated to assist such an enquiry. 

 How far this may be true, it will be our object to in- 

 vestigate. Certain, however, it is, that if, under such 

 disadvantages, any definite notions on animal distri- 

 bution can be derived from such volatile beings, the 

 results will go very far to strengthen our views upon 

 two material points : first, that a division of the earth, 

 characterised by strong peculiarities in its ornithology, 

 must be, to a certain extent, a natural division ; and, 

 secondly, that we shall be fully authorised in supposing^ 

 by analogy, that the same results would attend an equally 

 close investigation of other animals ; since it cannot for 

 a moment be supposed that man and birds are distri- 

 buted according to one plan, and all other animals by 

 another. 



(24.) Before illustrating the ornithology of Europe, 

 with reference to the geographic range of the genera and 

 species, we must advert to the difficulties by which the 

 enquiry is surrounded. The accounts and relations of 

 travellers, not in themselves naturalists, must, upon this 

 and every other occasion, be received with great caution. 

 Unacquainted with those nice distinctions, on which not 

 only the separation of species, but of genera and 

 families, are now known to depend, these writers per- 

 petually contradict, by a hasty application of well- 

 known names, some of the most acknowledged truths 

 in animal geography. Nor can the facts collected in 

 the compilations oi more scientific writers be always 



r 1 



