418 Note on the Zoology Ave, 
their force or their stratagem ; and feels that nature is now unfettered ; 
that they, like himself, are free. 
How different is the state of mind of the man so situated, from that 
of him who only looks through the bars of a dungeon upon the miser- 
able animals confined within. One views nature with the eye of a 
classifier alone, anxious to find out some petty point of distinction, 
some little difference upon which to found a genus; the other with the 
enthusiasm of a lover. One strives to bend her to his system: the 
other would embrace her own; nature to him is all in all, and system 
but valued as an interpreter of nature. 
Systems, menageries, collections, however, have their value, and 
that value is great. To the naturalist of nature they serve, in after- 
days, to recal vividly to his mind recollections of the past. To others 
they offer a portion of science, that otherwise they could not attain. 
Mr. Hopeson, author of six of the sixteen papers in this second 
part of the 1st volume of the Transactions of the Physical Class of the 
Asiatic Society, unites the advantages of the travelling and sedentary 
naturalist. Fixed upon the most stupenduous mountains of the 
world, and in a situation of political power that rarely falls to the lot 
of the friends of science, he has opportunities of doing great things 
for that branch to which he has devoted himself. Much may fairly 
be expected from him ; and to do him justice he certainly is not inclin- 
ed to be idle. 
The first of Mr. Hopeson’s papers belong to Ornithology ; the 
portionof zoological science, perhaps of all most generally attractive. 
The system he follows is that laid down in the 1st volume of the Zoologi- 
cal Journal, (a work no naturalist should be without) by Mr. Vicors, 
Secretary to the Zoological Society ; and which, though perhaps the 
best devised by English naturalists, is replete with the faults of 
the MacLszay school. The generic divisions are sometimes founded 
upon doubtful or minute characters, and there is occasionally a good 
deal of squeezing to make them fit. Whilst, above all, there is obser- 
vable in this school an affectation of perfection; a presumption of know- 
ledge; which with the limited acquaintance with nature man must 
ever be confined to, appears totally unjustifiable to every one, not 
seduced by the language in which its views are detailed ; or willing to 
surrender his judgment to such great names as those of MacLray, 
Vicors, and Horsrreip. It is however the less necessary to dwell upon 
this, as the circumstance has not escaped the notice and the censure of 
some late continental writers: by whom the system has not been esti- 
mated so highly as was contemplated by its patrons and founders. 
