A Bird's-Eye View 



interest to the general student. Any other 

 classification than that which now monopolizes 

 the term "scientific," is also valid, just to the 

 degree of its significance ; precisely as the 

 recent and popular arrangement of flowers 

 according to color utterly ignores the structural 

 method, and may be called extremely super- 

 ficial ; still it is legitimate, interesting, and, to 

 a large class of botanists, exceedingly helpful. 

 All the methods of classification in the natural 

 sciences being as yet tentative, it ill becomes 

 the advocate of any system to arrogate exclu- 

 sive validity to his own method. In the 

 science of birds there are other affinities than 

 those of flesh and blood, and other unities than 

 those of mandibles, toes, and feathers. To the 

 average observer, I am sure, the affiliations of 

 the various thrushes is more interestingly be- 

 trayed by their prevailing " thru,sh-like tone," 

 than by all of their bony resemblances ; and 

 the most characteristic trait of all flycatchers is 

 a more apparent, if a less profound, bond, than 

 minutiae of organism. 



The classification I propose is a device to 

 aid the memory, rather than one that hinges on 

 the subtleties of consanguinity. It is what the 

 chemist might call a working formula, for those 



71 



