PARTIAL SYSTEMS. 183 



and Clairville. Following the order of these names, 

 we proceed to give a slight sketch of each. 



(235.) Illiger published his classification of quadru- 

 peds and birds in 1811. The former he divides into four- 

 teen orders, from characters taken from the feet. These 

 orders he arranges under two great or primary divisions : 

 the first containing the true quadrupeds; the second 

 the aquatic or cetaceous Mammalia, and the seals : thus 

 making, at the outset, a retrograde movement from 

 natural arrangement. These orders, again, are divided 

 into families, under which are arranged the genera. 

 As the groundwork of this system is eminently arti- 

 ficial, and as the genera (excellent in themselves) have 

 been all incorporated in the Regne Animal, there is no 

 occasion to enter upon further particulars. In arrang- 

 ing the class of birds, our author has been somewhat 

 more successful in his higher combinations, although 

 here, likewise, he is inferior to Aristotle. He makes 

 seven orders of the whole ; considering the Scanscres, 

 or climbers, as distinct from the perching birds {In- 

 sessores), which he terms Amhulatores ; while he se- 

 parates, in like manner, the Cursores, or ostrich family, 

 from the Rasore.i, to which they truly belong : for the 

 rest, the genera are all good, although the series in 

 which they are placed evinces that the author had no 

 idea of the difference between analogy and affinity. 

 These genera are all incorporated in the present work, 

 under the classical and appropriate names bestowed 

 upon them in the Prodromus Systematis Mammalium 

 et Avium of this accomplished zoologist. 



(236.) The ornithological system of M. Vieillot is 

 chiefly remarkable for the incorporation of the scansorial 

 birds with the perchers, both forming a part of our 

 author's second order, Sylvicolce. He likewise rectified 

 the error of Illiger, in regard to the ostrich family, 

 ■which he makes the first group among the waders. 

 This arrangement is not far from natural ; so that we 

 find, for the first time in modern systems, the natural 

 series of the five orders of birds. M, Vieillot's system 



N 4 



