CLASSIFICATION 215 



am much mistaken if we are not on the verge of the 

 adoption of changes which a short time ago would have 

 astonished the most learned ornithologists, and that in 

 a year or two all the old " orders " will be entirely 

 broken up and new ones constructed. Prof. Huxley, 

 Mr. Sclater, and I, working each from different sides, 

 have come to something very like the same results, and 

 I must confess I think our results are hkely to be lasting 

 ones. I own, therefore, I should be very sorry to see 

 our University pledged to maintain a systematic arrange- 

 ment which, unless I read the signs of the times very 

 wrongly, is about to be set aside for ever,* 



It may be said, indeed, that he was always waiting 

 for the true scheme of classification, and he never adopted 

 one or publicly formulated one of his own so long as he 

 lived. 



I think a fairly satisfactory arrangement (all things 

 considered) of British birds might be made — beginning 

 with CormdcB. You may go to Buntings, Finches, and 

 the Larks. Then comes a break and you must start 

 afresh with (say) Paridce (including Nuthatch and Tree- 

 Creeper) and so to SylviidcB, Turdidce, Laniidce {+AmpeUs) 

 and finishing with the Swallows, which so far as I can 

 see form the only family of Passeres about the boundaries 

 of which one can be sure. I believe I sent W. Eagle- 

 Clarke a tentative fist some years ago, of which he made 

 use in the Edinburgh Museum, and I doubt whether I 

 could improve upon it now — ^for one is no nearer the 

 pedigree of British birds than one was then.f 



In questions of nomenclature it must be admitted 

 that Newton was ultra-conservative. He founded his 

 faith on the Twelfth Edition of the " Systema Naturae " 

 of Linnaeus, and he strongly resented any attempts to 

 upset the old order. 



* Letter to Mrs. Strickland, February 12^ 1867. 

 t Letter to William Evans, November 20, 1898. 



