niCHOTOMOUS SYSTEM EXAMINED. 1Q5 



never, perhaps, ventured upon in any system ; and this 

 alone is sufficient to take from the whole scheme any 

 pretensions to the claim of a natural series. But the 

 merit of Dichotomy, it may he urged, lies in tlie strength 

 of its absolute characters, by which a student can at 

 once determine tlie division to which a genus or a 

 species belongs. We will, therefore, test it by this prin- 

 ciple. Every ornithologist is aware that the feet of the 

 kingfishers {Halcyonidce) , bee-eaters {Meropida), and 

 the T^nW-hirAs^TamatiiKp), have two toes before and two 

 behind, but that these families, so far from climbing, 

 like the Scan^ores, are only able to sit still upon a 

 branch, and watch for their prey, which they take upon 

 the wing after the manner of swallows. Here, then, is 

 an entire natural division, containing nearly 100 species, 

 recognised by all modern writers out which, in this 

 dichotomous system, has no place whatever assigned to 

 it. Again, the family of tree creepers {Certhidce), well 

 exemplified both by our common creeper and nuthatch, 

 are eminently scansorial, and live, as it were, on the 

 upright trunks of trees ; but the student, knowing this, 

 and wishing to find their station among the " Scansores," 

 may search in vain either for one genus or the other- 

 To multiply further instances will be needless. It 

 appears, therefore, that a dichotomous or binary system 

 will not even answer the purpose of an index to the 

 genera or species, while it makes pretension to placing 

 those groups together which every one sees that nature 

 has united. The Linnoean arrangement of birds, with all 

 its defects, is more natural, and more easy of compre- 

 hension. 



(252.) It is quite unnecessary to particularise the dif- 

 ferent binary systems which have been published by 

 various hands ; since we, no less than our readers, might 

 draw up fifty others, each different from the other, and 

 each as worthless for use. 



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