38 INTRODUCTION 



ornithology, it is quite necessary, in an elementary sketch 

 like the present, to notice one still more recently promul- 

 gated by Nicholas Aylward Vigors, Esq. m.a. and f.l.s., 

 in a paper by him in the third part of the 14th volume of 

 the Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, entitled, 

 " Observations on the Natural Affinities that connect the Orders 

 and Families of Birds;" and also in several explanatory 

 papers since published in the Zoological Journal ; as well as 

 in his Lectures at the Zoological Society, of which he is, 

 at once, the efficient and learned Secretary. 



In the first paper, Mr. Vigors, in allowing to our conti- 

 nental neighbours the chief merit of improving the science 

 of Zoology, observes, " that Great Britain has made ample 

 amends for the tardy adoption of the more philosophical views 

 of the science in the masterly use to which she applied them 

 when once adopted, and the rapid strides by which she at 

 once, as it were, outstripped all previous research. It has 

 been reserved for one of her sons (Mr. W. S. Mac Leay)* 

 to throw a new light upon the sphere of animated nature, 

 aud to bring to view a principle that pervades all her works, 

 as beautiful as it is comprehensive. * In the year 1819, the 

 enlightened author of Hora Entomologies (Mr. Mac Leay) 

 first called the attention of the lovers of the science to a 

 principle which he discovered in a minute group of insects, 

 and which, with a comprehensiveness of mind, and an accu- 

 racy of execution seldom united in an individual, he subse- 

 quently followed up through the whole range of animal life." 



Mr. Vigors then refers "to the great revolution which 

 the publication of these principles has effected in Zoology. 

 The system which has been traced out with so much success, 

 by the author of Horce Entomologies, prevails in none more 

 conspicuously than in those of ornithology." 



It appears that this new system depends upon what has 



